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We’re honored today to serve up a guest post from Jeanne Hodesh, who attended Just Food’s “Let Us Eat Local” event earlier this week. Jeane is a freelance food writer and committed locavore. She blogs regularly for Takeabite.cc, Saveur.com, and has been published in Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan. She also composes Local Gourmands, a cool weekly e-newsletter that lists local food events in New York City. Thanks Jean!

Beneath the colorful lights of make believe palm trees on Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, I found myself balancing a camera, a reporter’s notebook and a clam shell brimming with crevice from Palo Santo — it was all I could do to keep the spicy dressing from dripping into my viewfinder. While I managed to slide the clam crevice sample into my mouth, Chef Jacques Gautier (above) told me he grew the peppers I was tasting (suddenly very piquant!) on the rooftop garden of his restaurant in Park Slope. As for the sweet corn and onions, a helpful list of the farms he works with was prominently displayed next to his serving tray.

Tuesday night, Let Us Eat Local, Just Food’s celebration to honor the inaugural winners of the McKinley Hightower-Beyah award, drew hungry crowds to tasting tables featuring food from twenty restaurants in New York City who source their ingredients locally.

After my chat with Jacques, I moved on to pork belly and potato salad from Little D Eatery, and then to petit ravioli from Jean Georges, followed by hearty slices of heirloom tomatoes on fresh ricotta prepared by Sweet Deliverance. The Candle Cafe plated sauteed shitake mushrooms with a balsamic reduction, while The Green Table ladled cupfuls of watermelon gazpacho with memorable blue corn Madeleines on the side. It would have been hard to pace myself (so much to try, so little time!), but at every turn in my meandering meal, the chefs and servers were eager to talk, share a hearty handshake, and tell me more about what I was tasting. The food, the chefs and the farms would have stolen the show, were it not for the luminaries being honored.

If you are not familiar, Just Food is a non-profit that has been promoting and working for food justice in New York City for the last 14 years. Through their city farms, CSAs and Community Food Education program, Just Food commits itself to connecting New York city-dwellers of all economic backgrounds with locally grown, sustainably produced food and the farmers who grow it. In 2007, McKinley Hightower-Beyah, a devoted teacher, gardener, volunteer, food justice advocate, and a dear friend to Just Food, passed away. An award has been created to celebrate his legacy, and Tuesday night ’s celebration presented the first honorees with plaques commemorating their accomplishments and continued devotion.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was honored as a leader for her work to enroll more New Yorkers for food stamps and passing a law that created 1000 permits for fruit and vegetable vendors to set up shop in underserved communities. La Familia Verde (right) was awarded as an organization that created and maintains a community garden and community-run farmer’s market which has garnered the respect and following of their neighbors in the Crotona, East Tremont, and West Farms neighborhoods in the Bronx.

In the words of Abu Talib, (left) the evening’s honored gardener, “We are not just raising food, we are raising people. It is not right that a handful of people control the whole food industry, because he who controls your breadbasket controls your destiny.”

Ted Blomgren of Windflower Farm was also noted for his exemplary help in expanding Just Food’s Fresh Food for All campaign, as well as serving on the organization’s Farmer Advisory Committee for 7 years.

The first award of the evening, however, went to McKinley’s family, who lit the tent with humble smiles and said, if he were here, McKinley would have told us all to “Keep on keepin’ on.”