Food magazines: whatcha like?

[Jenise]

Once upon a time I thought Bon Appetit was the be-all, end-all. Then for awhile it seemed to get more home-y, seemed to aim itself at the Betty Crocker set (likely owing to the popularity of Cooks Illustrated and wanting to get in on that), and I lost interest. In recent years it seems to have improved and I continue to subscribe, in large part because I feel so bad about what's happened to print media. But if I were to pare down by one subscription, this is the one that would go.

I've come around to liking Food & Wine magazine a lot. Not initially a fan, it had to grow on me, but in general the overall style of cooking and plating they feature is very much in alignment with my tastes, especially for everyday cooking. Right or wrong, I early on thought it veered too much in the direction of the old Gourmet magazine which had been getting way too lifestyle-y. (The final nail in the coffin was a story about Bobby Flay and his then-wife visiting Savannah, GA, and describing which designer clothing they wore right down to her purse. I cancelled my subscription that very day.) But if that similarity was ever there it's not now, they pretty much stick to food and promoting the chefs who create it, which I very much enjoy. In that way, they've become quite influential within the restaurant industry.

But every now and then there's an eyeroller like the recipe in the current issue for rack of lamb with some kind of a mango glaze. The recipe calls for four twigs of rosemary. You might think those are for flavoring the marinade, but no. You're to tie them together and use them as your brush for swabbing the mango stuff on the lamb!!! COME ON.

I still love Saveur. And a new one I appreciate a lot is Plate magazine. They do some extremely interesting features, like one last year on Jewish restaurants across the diaspora: L.A., New York, Mexico City, Montreal, etc., mostly ignoring the delicatessen food we all know and homing in on subsets we don't, like Morroccan-Jewish and the like.

Do you still take food magazines, and if so which ones?

[Robin Garr]

I've pretty much gotten away from all food magazines over the years, to be honest. It's more interesting to range across The Google, using common sense to separate the good stuff from the junk. But that being said, after feeling very much as you do about Bon Appetit, I fell into a chance to take their digital-only edition - which includes a daily email letter - for free. How could I turn it down? And then when it started coming, I discovered to my surprise that it has some recipes that I like.

Mostly, though, nowadays I go to a curated set of online resources. New York Times Food is a biggie, and they also have a daily email letter. I like Serious Eats pretty well, although they seem a little more commercial lately. NPR's The Salt for interesting weekly articles about food. Civil Eats for left-leaning food politics and Gastro Obscura for strange and little-known nuggets about world food.

We get Food & Wine through miles on airtines we don't fly much, and it's well worth that.
Sometimes so good recipes, and interesting takes on up and coming chefs.

But we probably pay more attention to NYT Cooking than anything else. Betsy likes the Food 52 site as well, and I pay attention to Serious Eats

[Jenise]

I like Food 52 a lot. If I have a need for a recipe and googling turns up a recipe on that site, I'll preferentially select that option first.
But I don't just 'roam' there--probably should.

I liked Gourmet a lot, back in the day. Since then, I'm with Robin... I roam teh intertubez and read until I find a recipe I like -- or a set of recipes that I can Frankenstein together to be what I want.

I’ve been a heavy user of food mags over the years. Initially a Gourmet fan -that seemed to go off course. Bon Appetit has been pretty solid over the years. Food and Wine I have not read in past 5 years or so... I would frequently but this in airports and invariably felt disappointed after reading. The one I am surprised that no one has mentioned is Fine Cooking.... we still get hay and love it.

Saveur by a mile. I don't make a ton of the recipes because they often require specialized ingredients, but it's the only one that is truly interesting to me, along with what I think of as their sister cocktail magazine, Imbibe. Cook's Illustrated (and Country) seem to have run out of interesting recipes years ago.

Fine Cooking for me, too. It's the only print magazine I get. I also like a few on-line sites: Serious Eats, Italian Food Forever, occasionally Food 52.

I subscribed to Gourmet until it dies, and still subscribe to saveur and Bon Appetit.

Gourmet had too much travel content and Saveur has too many unobtainable ingredients.

None of the other ones turn my crank hard enough for me to subscribe.

[Jenise]

I’ve been a heavy user of food mags over the years. Initially a Gourmet fan -that seemed to go off course. Bon Appetit has been pretty solid over the years. Food and Wine I have not read in past 5 years or so... I would frequently but this in airports and invariably felt disappointed after reading. The one I am surprised that no one has mentioned is Fine Cooking.... we still get hay and love it.

You and Ted on Fine Cooking. Wonder if it's an east coast thing? We never see it on this side of the world.

Interesting that we all seem to have had the same reaction to Gourmet.

I subscribed to Gourmet until it dies, and still subscribe to saveur and Bon Appetit.

Gourmet had too much travel content and Saveur has too many unobtainable ingredients.

None of the other ones turn my crank hard enough for me to subscribe.

I didn't think it would happen quite this quickly, but Saveur is dead. I loved that they went really deep on single regions and foods that were unique, at least to me. They replaced it with Food and Wine, which is more sophisticated than I would have thought from the title. An emphasis on pairings, with a number of interesting wines featured. Definitely not the same, though.

One of the features was How to Plan a Long Lunch, which had a weird "It's okay to get completely drunk during the day!" vibe, even if overall I thought the advice was sound. I'll keep flipping through the issues but don't think I would subscribe again.

[Jenise]

Walt, interesting that they gave you Food & Wine; they gave me a magazine from a husband and wife team of house flippers named Chip and Joan, or something like that, on HGTV. Obviously I've never seen it or been interested. I cancelled immediately and just today got my refund.

Food & Wine isn't bad at all. It's not the brainiac food mag that Saveur was, but I like the emphasis on Chefs and cooking. Their nominations of Best new chef this and that have made an impact on the food industry, more perhaps than the James Beard awards because the magazine format is so much more dynamic and easily circulated.

Walt, interesting that they gave you Food & Wine; they gave me a magazine from a husband and wife team of house flippers named Chip and Joan, or something like that, on HGTV. Obviously I've never seen it or been interested. I cancelled immediately and just today got my refund.

Food & Wine isn't bad at all. It's not the brainiac food mag that Saveur was, but I like the emphasis on Chefs and cooking. Their nominations of Best new chef this and that have made an impact on the food industry, more perhaps than the James Beard awards because the magazine format is so much more dynamic and easily circulated.

Well, that is funny! They must have taken a look at my duplex with the weed-strewn yard and concluded that a house mag was not for me.

My only subscription now is F&W but the last 2 issues have not been inspiring. Much prefer the food section of the Washington Post to the NYT. Seems like a lot more content available with a basic subscription. Get ideas searching Food 52 specifically genius recipes or contest winner recipes for specific ingredient or dish. Often just goggle an ingredient or dish and noodle around. I like quickly seeing the variations on a specific recipe and then tweaking it to my idea

[Jenise]

You probably go through stages just like me. Some issues I tear out four or five recipes, and others I'll toss out unmolested after reading. I still get Bon Appetit (mostly because the Huzz keeps renewing the subscription), but I find more value in F&W and I've lost some respect by the activity on BA's Facebook page which I finally opted out of. What a bunch of idiots. Unrealistic beginners, mostly, who can't tell zucchini from cucumbers.

I find all of FB a giant waste of time if all you want is to find out information. The level is generally very low.

Serious discussions seem to take place either on non FB sites or on FB groups that are not open to public membership - invitation only. I expect that if you are far better than I am at ignoring idiots you might get more out of it.

[Jenise]

I agree with that. It's for fun and sharing, and there are sites there I enjoy being part of. But I have no patience for twits. The BA forum is full of lazy dolts who post things like "I have two pounds of potatoes I don't know what to do with. Recipe ideas?" Even more dismaying are the gaggle of responders who waste their own time stabbing around in the dark with wild-shot suggestions when they don't even knowing if this person's cooking breakfast or dinner. I didn't stay there very long.

I agree with that. It's for fun and sharing, and there are sites there I enjoy being part of. But I have no patience for twits. The BA forum is full of lazy dolts who post things like "I have two pounds of potatoes I don't know what to do with. Recipe ideas?" Even more dismaying are the gaggle of responders who waste their own time stabbing around in the dark with wild-shot suggestions when they don't even knowing if this person's cooking breakfast or dinner. I didn't stay there very long.

I have only one potato. What should I do with it? I just ate the next-to-last potato.

Today's bread with Sumo Mandarin zest came out great. We had meatloaf sandwiches on it. And HM french fries. Been a long, long time.