Grilled: 2009 James Beard Awards

Keller, Boulud, Lagasse and the Ted and Todd show pick questions out of our sauce pan

The JBAs (blogger parlance) is sorta like the Oscars of the food world: The country's top culinary talents converge on Avery Fisher Hall every May, backs are patted, random wine varietals are sipped, and loads of awards are given out to folks named Barber, Chang and Vongerichten (see full recap).

Like all major galas, the grand entrance to the party is made via red carpet, where we camped out with aggressive wire photographers ("Daniel, Daniel, look left dammit!") and random Latin American TV crews to find out about gruesome kitchen injuries, whether Frank Bruni was doing a good job and how everybody is surviving our toilet economy. As always, all questions were pulled randomly out of a sauce pan. Interviews include: Emeril Lagasse, Paul Liebrandt, Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Grant Achatz, Scott Conant, Dan Barber, Wylie Dufresne and Thomas Keller. —Matt Rodbard, photos by Melissa Hom

Pictured: Ted Allen and Todd English