Bringing the Best to Your Table: The 2017 Yankee Editors’ Choice Food Awards

Scouting winners for Yankee’s annual Editors’ Choice Food Awards is senior food editor Amy Traverso’s favorite kind of shopping. “I’ll come across some farm stand or market and discover a really good new cheese or chocolate,” she says, “and I feel like a baseball scout who found the next great pitcher!”  The award winners that she discovered for 2017 — which are profiled in the November/December issue of Yankee — are a delectably diverse bunch, ranging from a Maine-made chèvre cloaked in savory herbs and lavender to an addictive applewood-smoked bacon from a 105-year-old New Hampshire smokehouse. What that they all have in common, though, is a pride in their craft that’s deeply rooted in New England traditions. To create the photographs celebrating this year’s honorees, Yankee teamed up with a company renowned for putting similar emphasis on quality and artisanship: Vermont-based Simon Pearce, presenting sponsor of the 2017 Editors’ Choice Food Awards*. Staff photographer Mark Fleming, art director Lori Pedrick, and stylist Krissy O’Shea traveled to Simon Pearce’s Quechee flagship for the photo shoot, which allowed them to use its famous glassware and other handcrafted offerings to create a themed backdrop for the winning meats, cheeses, drinks, and other treats. To learn more about the New England producers who took home this year’s Editors’ Choice Food Awards, including where to buy their products, check out Amy Traverso’s feature story in the November/December issue. To learn more about Simon Pearce or the artisan wares seen in these photos, go to simonpearce.com. * Presenting sponsors do not play a role in choosing the winners of Yankee’s Editors’ Choice Food Awards.

EDITORS’ CHOICE FOOD AWARDS: CHEESES