Cooking
- American Wine Blog Awards
Last year, Tom Wark at Fermentation hosted the American Wine Blog Awards, and they proved popular enough to do a second time. If you read wine blogs — I consider OWF a food and wine blog, which means it doesn’t quite fit in either category...
- What Is Bimbo Break?
I was trying to solve a puzzle in the latest issue of The Enigma, the monthly publication of The National Puzzlers’ League, and I decided the answer might be one of the Coca-Cola brands. I haven’t memorized them, of course, so I looked them...
- Art Of Eating, Number 76
Ed Behr’s quarterly, The Art of Eating, distinguishes itself from other food and wine publications in a number of ways: quality of writing/editing, depth of research, and lack of ads. But perhaps the most unusual aspect is a seeming lack of word...
- Menu For Hope Approaches
Menu For Hope, the end-of-year food blogger charity drive started by Pim, is about to start. Bloggers around the world contribute gifts, and everyone buys raffle tickets for the prizes they’d like to win. The money — over $60,000 last year...
- Mark Morford On The Baconator Ads
In Mark Morford’s latest opinion column for the San Francisco Chronicle, he rants about the new Wendy’s ads — and our culture of gluttony — in his typical stream-of-consciousness style. I guess everyone’s writing about food...
Cooking
Keep Or Don't Keep: Magazines Worth Moving
So here it is: The final countdown (cue the Europe song). In two weeks, we will have no claim to our apartment; we will want nothing to do with our apartment. Ever again.
Today, I culled magazines from my shelves in an attempt to reduce the amount of clutter we’re moving. Looking back through my archives of various publications, I had to decide which would end up in the new house and which would end up in the recycling bin.
I’ve tried to be harsh, but some magazines make for good research material — I didn’t save any because of recipes. Which food magazines made the cut? (I assume most of you do not care that I discarded Opera News and kept Cubism For Fun).
Keep
- The Art of Eating — You’re shocked, I know. The magazine that informs my writing and my eating philosophy has encyclopedic articles that are usually the best in the business for the given topic. That’s why it’s the best food magazine in the country. My subscription dates back to issue 53, though I have some earlier issues that Ed sent me when I needed them for research.
- Saveur — This magazine has the most in-depth food articles of the mainstream glossies. My subscription dates back to issue 13 or so, and I do find myself referring back to older issues on occasion.
- Gastronomica — Though the poems and paintings rarely move me, this scholarly journal has articles that get researchers like me off to a good start. They’re not as comprehensive as AoE’s, as a rule, but they’re more eclectic. I started my subscription with issue 1, and I believe it has never lapsed.
- Carafe — I learned of Todd Wernstrom’s terroir-focused newsletter from AoE. When I started writing for his magazine The Wine News, we corresponded often, and I expressed my sorrow when he closed up shop. He sent me one of each issue, so I have the whole library.
- The Wine News — Speaking of The Wine News, my small collection survived the cut. The magazine has the most in-depth articles of the wine glossies, and I could see myself referring to them in the future. My subscription started when I started writing for them.
Don’t Keep
- Wine Spectator — There was a time — when I was a wine newbie — when I read these religously. Even after I stopped, I kept up my subscription because I wanted to see what the 800-pound gorilla of wine writing was saying. Except that the news pieces lagged behind the blogosphere by a few months, and the feature pieces seemed to repeat each year.
- Food & Wine — At best, I glanced at these a few times.
- Bon Appétit — Forget wondering about moving them; I wondered why I still had them. Bon Appétit served me well when I was first learning to make gourmet food, but is there any content there besides ads anymore?
- Cook’s Illustrated — I have a website account; I have several years’ worth of the annual hardbound collections. I don’t need the magazines; at any rate, the quality of the magazine has fallen off in recent years. I let my subscription lapse in 2005, but I had given up on it by early 2004.
- Slow — The publication of the Slow Food movement has interesting articles, but they’re not quite research-library-worthy.
Which of your magazines would survive a major cleaning?
- American Wine Blog Awards
Last year, Tom Wark at Fermentation hosted the American Wine Blog Awards, and they proved popular enough to do a second time. If you read wine blogs — I consider OWF a food and wine blog, which means it doesn’t quite fit in either category...
- What Is Bimbo Break?
I was trying to solve a puzzle in the latest issue of The Enigma, the monthly publication of The National Puzzlers’ League, and I decided the answer might be one of the Coca-Cola brands. I haven’t memorized them, of course, so I looked them...
- Art Of Eating, Number 76
Ed Behr’s quarterly, The Art of Eating, distinguishes itself from other food and wine publications in a number of ways: quality of writing/editing, depth of research, and lack of ads. But perhaps the most unusual aspect is a seeming lack of word...
- Menu For Hope Approaches
Menu For Hope, the end-of-year food blogger charity drive started by Pim, is about to start. Bloggers around the world contribute gifts, and everyone buys raffle tickets for the prizes they’d like to win. The money — over $60,000 last year...
- Mark Morford On The Baconator Ads
In Mark Morford’s latest opinion column for the San Francisco Chronicle, he rants about the new Wendy’s ads — and our culture of gluttony — in his typical stream-of-consciousness style. I guess everyone’s writing about food...