Posted by Jamie Forrest, September 3, 2008 at 9:30 AM
Cheese lovers everywhere should run to their nearest newsstand to pick up a copy of this month's Wine Spectator magazine, whose oversized cover boldly declares what's to be found inside: 100 Great Cheeses.
A wine magazine covering cheese is a dicey proposition, but I have to say they've done it right. The coverage is spread across several articles, which include a background piece about the recent ascendancy of fine cheese in America, an article that presents four suggested cheese plates along with their respective wine pairings, a bunch of tasty-looking recipes, and, as the cover promises, a detailed description of 100 of the greatest cheeses in the world.
All of this great content is interspersed with very thorough introductions to some of the different types of cheese (alpine, washed rind, blue), as well as tons of spectacular photographs of cheese, each one more beautiful than the next.
One problem I have with the article is the glaring lack of ratings. For a magazine that places such a focus on giving a score to a bottle of wine, it is a bit disingenuous to produce a list of 100 great cheeses without offering ratings for them (or even so much as an explanation for the lack of ratings).
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Among the scanned magazines on Mygazine.com are a number of familiar food titles, including Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, and Saveur, among others. We’ll see how long this site lasts before legal action puts it to bed. [via Kottke]
Posted by Sarah Wolf, May 20, 2008 at 6:30 PM
The Kitchn recently praised men's magazines for getting more serious about food, from articles by Mark Bittman in Men's Health to Esquire's recipe for spaghetti and lobster. But, as The Kitchn points out, "these are still men's magazines," which means they have their own special angle on food writing. Sometimes that makes their articles all the more entertaining—after proclaiming David Chang the most important chef of 2007, GQ quotes him as saying, "My partner gets to kick me in the balls if he catches me wearing those reflective silvered sunglasses that asshole Europeans wear indoors. I can do the same to him." Nevertheless, GQ knows what its audience really wants—their "article" about model-turned-chef Padma Lakshmi is basically just a photo shoot of Lakshmi eating dinner in her underwear.
So if you're willing to wade through vapid features like Esquire's "The Hurried Man's Guide to Cheese" or a warning about "The Flabtastic Four" from Men's Health, you may find a few articles that are actually worth reading. But you're probably better off sticking with food magazines that focus on the edible kind of cheesecake.
Posted by Robyn Lee, April 8, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Do you love reading about food but find mainstream food magazines like Saveur and Gourmet just don't cut it for you? Check out Blake Royer's magazine recommendations, which include Gastronomica, Edible Brooklyn, Diner's Journal, and The Art of Eating. If you have other favorites, let Blake know!
Posted by Robyn Lee, February 19, 2008 at 4:30 PM
Design Observer takes a look at the shift in animal trade magazine cover design over the past century. It's too bad they didn't mention Serious Eats' favorite animal trade magazine, sheep!: "The Voice of the Independant Flockmaster." [via Gawker]
Posted by Robyn Lee, June 12, 2007 at 1:00 PM
The newly launched Meatpaper is not actually paper made of meat, but a quarterly magazine composed of writings and art dedicated to edible animal flesh without taking the stance of being pro- or anti-meat.
Meatpaper is an investigation into what we see as a growing cultural trend of meat consciousness. It explores a category of food that inspires intense emotions and reactions. Meatpaper is about meat as a provocative cultural symbol and phenomenon....
Meat isn’t a straightforward or neutral topic. In conversation it tends to ruffle feathers and provoke debate. We hope you’ll join in.
Join the meat fray, read articles, or subscribe to the magazine at meatpaper.com.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 26, 2007 at 1:00 PM
Photograph from gordonramsay.com
In this week's New Yorker, Bill Buford takes us behind the scenes and into the kitchen of screaming English chef Gordon Ramsay as he opens a restaurant in New York City. Buford's a terrific writer, but I'm not sure we learn anything that surprising in its 12 pages.
Ramsay curses a lot, is a surprisingly understated chef, and is really a good bloke when you drill down and get to know him. The story's big revelation is that Ramsay himself stole the reservation book at Aubergine, his London restaurant, and then accused his former mentor Marco Pierre White of doing it to prevent White from making a deal with Aubergine's principal owners to take over the kitchen from Ramsay.
Interesting, yes. Earthshattering, no. Oh, yes, we learn that Ramsey likes to curse. A lot.
Posted by Ed Levine, March 26, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Has anyone else noticed how much better Saveur is now that its former editor in chief Coleman Andrews has taken his globetrotting ways to Gourmet? New editor in chief James Oseland is doing a terrific job. The magazine is more readable, more relevant, and just plain fun.
The March issue featured a terrific multifaceted feature on shrimp. Who doesn't love shrimp? The big shrimp section includes great recipes for barbecued shrimp from Tory McPhail of Commander's Palace, shrimp chowder from Sam Hayward from Fore Street in Portland, Maine, and stir-fried shrimp with snow peas from my friend Ed Schoenfeld, AKA "Chop Suey Looey."
Posted by Ed Levine, November 6, 2006 at 6:46 AM
Food Glossies Trumped by a "T"
I'm a compulsive reader of the food glossies: Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, and Saveur. Aren't you? Each has its virtues, though I can't say that any one of them really speaks to me. I like Gourmet's food politics stories and some of its writers (Jane and Michael Stern, John T. Edge, Calvin Trillin), but I don't share Ruth Reichl's enthusiasm for hiring as many novelists as she can to write stories for her. I used to look forward to reading Pete Wells' column in Food & Wine, but now that he's gone I'm sure I'm going to find Food & Wine's penchant for celebritizing everything (It's the In Style of food magazines) a little hard to take. I wish Bon Appetit had a funkier, more real voice and take on everything, but I don't want it to become Saveur, which takes realness to unnecessary, unusaable heights.
This obsession I have with the food glossies makes it all the more surprising that the Times magazine supplement, "T," this past Sunday put out an issue that was essentially another food glossy, albeit with a stylish and stylized bent, that was compulsively, pleasurably readable in a way that the food glossies rarely are.
The highlights of the issue: Sara Lyall's piece on London restaurant critics, Heidi Julavits' (yes I know she's an acclaimed young novelist)
funny and wise story on the groundbreaking year-round greenhouse growers in Maine, Toby Cecchini's piece of Schaller & Weber's double-amoked bacon (he thinks it's so good it should be declared a controlled substance), and a funny piece about breakfast in Los Angeles. Of course the LA breakfast piece would have been a lot better without the two Hollywood types telling us they eat at the Beverly Hills every morning. Now there's a breaking bit of news. In fact Los Angeles is a very good breakfast town, and would it have killed someone to call Irene (Sherry) Virbila of the LA Times to ask her for her five favorite breakfast spots in LA.
I haven't even mentioned the best part of yesterday's issue of "T."
There are contributions by two first rate food bloggers, Graham Holliday of Noodle Pie, and Clotide Dusoulier of chocolateandzucchini Of course the Times doesn't even print the urls of their blogs, but that's another story.
What's your favorite food glossy? Tell me why.
Posted by Ed Levine, July 18, 2006 at 4:58 PM
In this month's Food & Wine Anya Von Bremzen interviewed Francois Simon, Le Figaro's Grand Reporter, who according to Vom Bremzen is a "provocateur who uses his whimsically poisonous prose to shake up the ossified world of French haute cuisine, and the ferocious expense and acrid snobbery that goes with it." My friend Steingarten knows and respects Simon very much, so I tend to trust his judgment as well.
Here are a few of his picks:
- Gaya: 44 rue du Bac, 7th Arr.: 011-33-1-45-44-73-73: Three star chef's inventive, casual new fish restaurant.
- Le Bistrot Paul Bert: 18 Rue Paul Bert, 11th Arr.: 011-33-1-43-72-24-01. Great insider's bistro.
- Bakery: Boulangerie Julien (75 Rue St. Honore, 1st Arr., 011-33-1-42-36-24-83. Baguettes and croissants.
For the rest go to Food & Wine
Posted by Ed Levine, March 27, 2006 at 12:42 PM
I hate to keep mining yesterday's New York times for my posts, but there were lots of thought-provoking food stories worth commenting on. Michael Pollen's Times Magazine cover story on hunting for his dinner was well-written but ultimately unsurprising. Pollen concluded after shooting a pig and serving it to his dinner guests that that killing the flesh he served made the food on his table more meaningful. I guess the only other conclusion he could have come to was that he and every other carnivore should become a vegetarian or even worse, a vegan.
