Last night’s James Beard Awards ceremony in Chicago contained many wonderful things: Shout-outs to patient spouses. Acknowledgments of sobriety. Multiple winners repping traditional Japanese garments. What the evening did not contain: any winners from Washington state.
But we do have a strong connection to one of the chefs who walked away with a medal. Hajime Sato founded the sushi restaurant Mashiko in West Seattle in 1994. In 2009, he went all in on sustainable seafood. He took standards like bluefin tuna off the menu and installed a rigorous set of guidelines and some responsibly fished menu items to match. Today this remains a bold choice. Fifteen years ago, it
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