Written by Rosemary Mantini | 27 January 2010

Award-winners extraordinaire...

A while back, on November 26th to be exact, I wrote about three guys -- Chad, Clayton and Lyndon -- who call themselves Without Borders. Fearless and inspiring, they travel the world learning about native cuisine and cooking it. At the time, I wondered how they could possibly be any different from all of the other Food Network chefs, like Bourdain, Rocco or Brauch, who also visit locales near and far in an effort to show the rest of us what authentic cuisine is all about. The answer lay in the fact that these three guys from Calgary are amateurs. Granted, they know their way around a kitchen having been trained as chefs. But, when it comes to setting up shots, filming, editing and producing, they're learning on the job. Because they're not trained filmmakers, the videos they produce have a natural, gritty and honest quality about them. The guys bring a fresh, unassuming approach to food, culture and filming that seems to be somewhat lacking in the average Food Network offering these days. They're learning along with us. Learning not only how people around the world cook in their own homes and for their own people, but also learning about the finer points of filming and video production. Their efforts have been paying off in spades. They just received their very first Tasty Award. The Tasty Awards began in 2008 when the New Media Tastemakers Summit was held in San Francisco. The Summit was created as a way for media executives, editors, producers, bloggers, designers and "tastemakers" to meet to discuss the "highly influential Lifestyle-verticals of food & wine, fashion & design." The Summit members give out Tasty Awards to recognize excellence in videos that focus on food, drink, fashion and design.

Enter Without Borders. This year, they won the "JetBlue Airways Award for Best Food Travel Series: Web" beating out the likes of Culinary Media Network (CMN) Travel, Tripfilms and Vanuatu TV.

At the moment they're hard at work in Australia, but you can watch them in action here as they travel through Cambodia.

award | cooking competition | exotic | how-to