Marco Pinchot, community relations and sustainability manager for Taylor Shellfish, a Shelton, Wash., firm, prepares an oyster for Mariana Chilton, director of Center for Hunger-Free Communities in Philadelphia. Pinchot noted that eating Olympic oysters that are native to the Pacific Northwest helps assure their survival. (Kent Miller/Kent Miller Studios)

Eiko Vojkovich, left, owner/operator of Skagit River Ranch, with Maria Hines, guest chef at the James Beard Foundation’s Leadership Awards on Monday in New York City. (Kent Miller/Kent Miller Studios)

Chef Maria Hines, whose Seattle-area restaurants create cuisine that supports the local, sustainable and organic community, created “A Menu in Three Acts” for the James Beard Foundation’s third annual Leadership Awards dinner.

“I wanted to take the opportunity to create a platform through menu and palate, to evoke and inspire action for change, in regards to our food system,” said Hines, whose restaurants are called Tilth, the Golden Beetle and Agrodolce.

The main course was grass-fed beef from cattle raised by Eiko Vojkovich, owner-operator of the Skagit River Ranch.

• James Beard Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change

James Beard Foundation dinner guests were served six-ounce Skagit River Ranch Wagyu beef tenderloin steaks, grass-fed and 100 percent organic, over a bed of Northwest-foraged mushrooms, heirloom beans, oven-roasted tomatoes and truffle butter. Skagit Ranch owner Eiko Vojkovich told The Hagstrom Report that most of the steaks her company sells are 10 ounces due to consumer demand, but she considers that portion size larger than necessary. (Kent Miller/Kent Miller Studios)