Foodie Extraordinaire!

Recipe for Scandal — Now this story is funny! It’s a well written piece of journalism. Unfortunately you have to ask yourself where were the journalists before this guy got busted by the state?

When 1,700 chefs, restaurateurs, culinary writers, Food Network personalities and assorted other foodies gathered in midtown Manhattan on Monday to hear who had won this year’s coveted James Beard awards, the single greatest presence might well have belonged to the man who was absent — Len Pickell, the con artist who scandalized the industry and whose fall from grace came close to canceling the 2005 awards while ripping apart the nonprofit foundation that sponsors them.

For a decade, Pickell (pronounced pick-ELL) was a fixture at this million- dollar gala, the Academy Awards of food. Today he is in exile, awaiting sentencing for grand larceny.