A Trophy, and Cupcakes, for Maria Hines

We're long overdue in telling you that, earlier this week, Maria Hines of Tilth Restaurant won the James Beard award for Best Chef Northwest. You'll recall that Maria was part of an amazing, collaborative dinner featuring all of the nominees. Her Skagit River Ranch pork cheek with trotter cake, charcroute, and parmesan broth was fabulous, and illustrative of her local, organic approach to cooking.

It's not too late to celebrate. After all, today Trophy Cupcakes is celebrating "Maria Hines Day" by serving lemon strawberry minis and chocolate peanut butter minis (strawberry and peanut butter are two of Hines' favorite flavors) in her honor ($1.25 each). They're also putting up a Tilth display in recognition of their award-winning neighbor. Though we're a bit surprised that they haven't put Maria's image on a cupcake. Trophy can do amazing feats with frosting, as we saw when they created a cupcake in honor of our friend Cakespy, whose artwork is on display there for the rest of the month.

Photo courtesy of the James Beard Foundation.