Yummy, yummy food Above, left column; Larina James’s Mountain Girl Pickles won a 2022 Good Food Award for its pickled okra. Center column; Nichole Nuremberg’s Jai Mix won a 2022 Good Food Award for its spicy toasted coconut and ginger snack mix. Right column; Don Willoughby’s Willoughby Honey won a 2022 Good Food Award for its honeycomb.[/caption]

On January 14, 2022, the winners of the 2022 Good Food Awards were announced. These almost 200 winners were chosen from 351 finalists, which were selected out of 1,966 entries from across the country. The Good Food Awards take social and environmental responsibility, craftsmanship, and flavor into account when deciding what the best foods across the country are. They give awards in categories ranging from beer to cheese to chocolate to fish to pickles.

Of the almost 200 winners of this year’s awards, 22 of them came from Colorado, and three of them are Peak to Peak businesses – spicy toasted coconut and ginger snack mix from Boulder’s Jai Mix, honeycomb from Rollinsville’s Willoughby Honey, and pickled okra from Black Hawk’s Mountain Girl Pickles.

A graduate from the Rocky Mountain Institute of Yoga and Ayurveda with a degree in integrative physiology with a neurophysiology focus, Nichole Nuremberg started testing snack mix recipes in her kitchen over ten years ago. Batched by hand in the Colorado Rockies, Jai Mix was founded in October 2018, with Jai translating from Hindi to “Victory to the good.” The snacks are based on the Ayurvedic principle of the six tastes of healthy and pleasurable eating – bitter, astringent, pungent, sour, salty, and sweet – and you can find them in places such as Lucky’s, Alfalfa’s, Tasadana Mountain Yoga, and more.

Don Willoughby served as a ship’s captain for many years and has taught skiing at Eldora, Breckenridge, and Copper Mountain since 1986. He developed a passion for beekeeping after one of his colleagues at Breckenridge told him of his own plans to start beekeeping, and after researching the profession, he started learning how to bee keep himself. He now runs Willoughby Honey, a supplement of Willoughby Farms and a local business that allows customers to feel comfortable in knowing where their honey is coming from. The honeybees that Willoughby raises pollinate from a plot near Anderson Farms in Erie, and when honey from the bees is ready to be harvested, the hives are brought to Rollinsville, handspun, and bottled. Along with selling raw honey and honeycomb, other supplements of the business produce olive oil, maple syrup, and even lip balm and honey face scrub made of honey. You can find their products in places such as Lolita’s, Mocha Angelo’s, Wondervu Cafe, and more.

Mountain Girl Pickles started from a family tradition of pickling. While owner Larina James initially had no interest in taking on the tradition of pickling or jarring vegetables, once she moved to Colorado, she started working in a restaurant in Nederland. The owner of the restaurant asked James to serve pickles with Bloody Marys after overhearing a conversation between her and her father, and she agreed to learn her family recipes and serve the drinks with pickles. The pickles became so popular that customers asked for jars of them, and thus, Mountain Girl Pickles was born. You can find them in places such as Lucky’s, Natural Grocers, Jax Outdoor Stores, and more.

Nuremberg states that the Good Food Awards are “top honors and truly something to be proud of,” and the businesses are all thrilled to have received such a prestigious award for the foods they’ve put so much passion into creating.