Nashville restaurants might have been shut out of the James Beard Awards, but pastry chef and writer Lisa Donovan garnered a win at the journalism and cookbook awards on Friday night for her stunning essay on the #MeToo movement in the food industry.
Donovan's December piece in Food & Wine — titled "Dear Women: Own Your Stories" — won a medal for Best Personal Essay. In it, Donovan documents her own experience with sexual assault and sexual harassment, especially as a pastry chef, and makes a call for action:
We have all been surrounded by a kind of terrible and disgusting behavior. It's a boy’s club that we have all just laughed off, dismissed, denied, rolled our eyes at even when we have seen it day in and day out, when we’ve seen women give up, when we’ve heard people say they just couldn’t hack it, when we’ve bought into all the ridiculously damaging mythos of our industry. It has birthed a deeply-set way of denial and delusional behavior.It is something we all have to really, honestly face—and please not through a godforsaken PR company, but as the incredibly sensitive human beings that we are. Not because it is being forced upon us. But because we know it is long overdue and because we are not afraid.
Dononvan
tweeted her reactionto the win on Monday morning.
"My feet are just now finding the ground again," Donovan wrote. "I want to thank @beardfoundation for an incredible honor. It's strange to be awarded for something you wished you'd never have to write or say. But the fact that it was received by those I respect so much means everything. I'd like to add that the entire evening felt like an explosion of so many things that have been waiting to be heard and seen. We filled the room with hope, optimism and a dedicated voice to bring up our industry."
Congratulations, Lisa, and may many more Beards await in your future!
