Andrew Zimmern and friends. Photograph: Adam Robb / Eat Me Daily

After hours of passing thunderstorms, the sun finally joined the chefs for their arrival on the red carpet at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall for the James Beard Foundation's annual awards ceremony. Not everyone was keen to pose for the cameras, so we shunned our spot on the press line to catch some impromptu arrivals.

Inside, as the Star Wars soundtrack played on small fixed monitors around the press room, two things were obvious. The Beard Awards were Star Wars themed, particularly inspired by the medal ceremony at the end of A New Hope, and the accompanying music within was an imperial march to the open bar.

The restaurant industry's shining stars break out their nattiest duds, below.

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Aaron Douglas aka Battlestar Galactica's Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol and Jamie Bamber aka Lee 'Apollo' Adama flank a non-celeb Jedi Chef

There's no way to properly describe the website Jedi Chefs. I'll leave it up to them: "What do the Jedi Chefs do? We Jedi Chefs do the same sorts of things that 'normal' Jedi do, but we also cook." There's even a hierarchy, the top level being Jedi Master Chefs (of which there are 216), with a Jedi Chef Apprentice Program for those in training.

There doesn't seem to be much actual cooking going on. Instead the Jedi Chefs seem to hang out in hotel lobbies and conventions, taking pictures of themselves wearing chef hats, shooting Nerf guns (and what appear to be pulse rifles from Aliens) at each other, and swinging their light sabers around. They sometimes also appear to use what's commonly known as "the Force." Alcohol seems to play a nontrivial part.

James Callis aka Dr. Gaius Baltar, and Tahmoh Penikett aka Karl Agathon aka "Helo"

But most amazingly, they've managed to get an impressive array of celebrities from various television shows (mostly sci-fi) to participate, from nearly the entire cast of Battlestar Galactica to Lost, Alias, Heroes, Stargate SG-1, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Doctor Who, on and on. Amazingly, they don't seem to have corralled any Star Wars cast members. What gives?

So many more nerdy pictures »