The annual Good Food Awards honoring artisan food and beverage producers has named a handful of North Carolina companies among its finalists:

• Alamance County's Blessed Earth Farm won in the preserves category with its Summer Squash Curry Relish and Chapel Hill's Farmer's Daughter Brand won for its Rosey Strawberry Rhubarb Preserves.
• In the beer contest, Fullsteam Brewery in Durham won for its First Frost brew.
• In the confections category, Raleigh's Escazú Artisan Chocolates won with its Dark Chocolate Basil Ganache and Asheville's Looking Glass Creamery won for its Caramelita.

To see a complete list, go HERE.

The winners will be announced Jan. 8.

The Cookery in Durham has a few interesting classes on the horizon:

• Noon-3 p.m. Sept. 29, Brewing with an Extract on Your Stovetop by Triangle Brewing Co. owner Rick Tufts. Cost: $40.
• 6:30 p.m. Oct. 11, Fermentation 101 with April McGreger of Farmer's Daughter. You will take home jars of kimchi and sauerkraut. Cost: $40.
• 6:30 p.m. Oct. 17, Whole Chicken Butchery by Katie and Justin Meddis of Rose's Meat Market and Sweet Shop. Cost: $55.
• 6 p.m. Oct. 25, Whole Hog Butchery by Katie and Justin Meddis of Rose's Meat Market and Sweet Shop. Cost: $70.

To register, you have to go to the website: http://durhamcookery.com.
 

The Cookery in Durham has a couple interesting classes:

• April McGreger, owner of Farmer's Daughter in Carrboro, will be teaching a class on making peach jam at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 16. McGreger is known for the inventive small-batch preserves and pickles that she sells at the Carrboro Farmers' Market.
• Amanda Fisher, owner of The Blakemere Co. that sells clotted cream and other English treats sold around the Triangle, will teach a class on traditional English summer desserts at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 22.

The classes cost $40 each. For more information or to sign up for a class, go to durhamcookery.com/culinary-workshops.

The Carrboro Farmers' Market is offering a second season of community canning workshops starting Wednesday.

April McGreger of Farmer's Daughter will be teaching two sessions on how to make kimchi at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Kimchi is a fermented Korean dish similar to sauerkraut.

You must sign up ahead of time because space is limited. Send an email to erinheiderman@gmail.com and indicate which session you would like to attend. Space is limited. Participants will take home a jar of kimchi to ferment at home.

Workshops are $15 to participate, and free to observe. Bring cash or a check written out to The Carrboro Farmers' Market. Proceeds go to the market's Market Match Program, which helps consumers who shop using food stamps at the market.

The market is located at 301 W Main St., next to Carrboro's town hall. This is the first of a series of canning workshops this summer. For details about other upcoming workshops, go to carrborofarmersmarket.com.

Three Triangle artisinal food producers nabbed top taste awards from in an annual specialty food contest.

The three local winners are based in Raleigh, Durham and Carrboro, and create specialty and hand-crafted chocolate, coffee and jam.

The Triangle champs were among four North Carolina companies that walked way with first-prize ribbons.

To see the details, please see N&O food writer Andrea Weigl's blog.

Four North Carolina companies were honored over the weekend with Good Food Awards, which honor "tasty, authentic and responsibly produced" foods.

The North Carolina winners include:

• Miss Jenny's Pickles, Habanero Bread and Butter Pickles
• Escazu Artisan Chocolate, 60% Goat's Milk & 65% Costa Rica
• Counter Culture Coffee, Buna Ababa -- Haru
• Farmer's Daughter Brand, Strawberry Honeysuckle Jam

"We are thrilled to have won a good food award in the coffee category," says Counter Culture Coffee company spokesman Mark Overbay. "It's heartening to see a food award develop that honors not only authenticity but also great flavor and sustainability in food."

Overbay noted that Timothy Hill, Counter Culture's quality control manager and coffee buyer, was in San Francisco to receive the award, which was especially fitting since Hill has worked closely with the farmers' cooperative in Ethiopia that produced the coffee. Counter Culture Coffee

This is the second year in a row that Counter Culture has won a Good Food Award.

The contest, in its second year, awards winners in eight categories: beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, pickles, preserves and spirits.

Next Saturday is the Carrboro Farmers' Market annual Tomato Day celebration.

Starting at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, July 16, the Tomato Day event includes tomato samples, a display of more than 70 varieties, cooking tips and recipes, as well as live music, face painting for the children and a raffle.

To kick off their annual tomato celebration, the market is sponsoring two basic tomato canning classes from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 13. The teacher is April McGreger, owner of Farmer's Daughter Brand, which sells pickles, chutneys, syrups and more at the market.

McGreger also will be teaching a basic cucumber pickling class for children starting at 5:30 p.m.

To sign up for the canning or pickling classes, send an email to carrborofarmersmarket@gmail.com. Space is limited.

For more information about either event, go to www.carrborofarmersmarket.com
 

I have just gotten a flurry of e-mails today about a ton of interesting events in April. So get out your calendar and mark these dates:

• 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 6 is a fundraising dinner for the Center for the Study of the American South featuring  Southern Foodways Alliance director John T. Edge and pitmaster Rodney Scott of Scott's Variety Store and Bar-B-Q in Hemingway, S.C. Other chefs who will be involved include Ben and Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill, Whitney Brown of Scratch, April McGreger of Farmer's Daughter, Sam Suchoff of the Pig, Bill Smith of Crook's Corner and cookbook author Sheri Castle. The event is at 3Cups and costs $125. Call 956-0556 962-5665 to reserve your seat. There are only 50 tickets.
• 2-6 p.m. Sunday, April 10 is the annual SEEDS Pie Social and Skill Share Auction at the SEEDS garden at 706 Gilbert St. in Durham. The suggested donation for the pie social is $10 for four slices. Pies are being donated by Toast, Watts Grocery, Scratch and more. The skill share auction allows you to bid on things or opportunities to learn interesting skills from fellow community members from reupholstering a chair to brewing beer to flying a plane. All proceeds benefit the Durham Inner-City Gardeners, a youth-driven, urban farming leadership development program. 
• The annual Piedmont Farm Tour will be 1-5 p.m. April 16 and 17. Tickets cost $25 advance, $30 on the day of the tour for a carload. For more information and to purchase tickets, go HERE.
• 6 p.m. Thursday, April 21, Herons restaurant at the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary is offering a winemaker dinner featuring Tommy and Amie Baudoin of Morgan Ridge Vineyards in Gold Hill, N.C. The four-course meal will cost $85. Call 447-4200 for reservations.

A handful of North Carolina companies will find out Friday, Jan. 14 if they are winners of the Good Food Awards. Only 80 of the 130 finalists will be named winners.

The local honorees include:

Carrboro Coffee Company are listed with their El Aguacate coffee, Counter Culture Coffee with the Finca Kilimanjaro coffee, Weeping Radish Farm Brewery with their Liverwurst and Farmer’s Daughter with her Spicy Green Tomato pickles, Bourbon’d Figs & Muscadine Preserves.

April McGreger of Farmer's Daughter based in Carrboro.

The finalists have been announced for the Good Food Awards with several NC companies in the mix.  In fact, NC has finalists in four of the seven categories.

The list of 80 winners will be announced January 14th, 2011.

Carrboro Coffee Company are listed with their El Aguacate coffee, Counter Culture Coffee with the Finca Kilimanjaro coffee, Weeping Radish Farm Brewery with their Liverwurst and Farmer’s Daughter with her Spicy Green Tomato pickles, Bourbon’d Figs & Muscadine Preserves.

April McGreger of Farmer's Daughter based in Carrboro.