Anyone else hate the new issue of Gourmet?
Maybe I'm one of the first to get it...it's the August issue with the blackberry cheesecake on the cover. Instead of putting all the recipes in with the appropriate articles and whatnot, they clumped all the recipes together at the end of a magazine for a little "cookbook". I haaaaaate it!
There is a certain appeal about reading an article and then looking at the recipes right away that accompany- it adds to the experience. This layout- with the recipes all at the back of the magazine has a sort of disconnect, and I really don't feel any inclination to even look at the magazine again, let alone make any of the recipes. One of my favorite sections, and the reason I subscribe to Gourmet is the Gourmet Every Day recipes, and those are also clumped into this little section with tiny thumbnail size photos- hardly inspiring, and again, off-putting to me.
Did I mention how much I hate this issue! I'll be sending my strong e-mail Gourmet's way. What were they thinking!?
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28 Comments:
I dislike Gourmet but will read it on and off. It is by and large a huge advertisement fest. If you do not like it try Cook's Illustrated. No advertisements. I do however like watching Epicurious and using their website which has Gourmet recipes.
JerzeeTomato at 10:45AM on 07/24/08
I feel you sister... I don't like when a magazine rearranges something that works, fixing it when it ain't broke.
Send your strongly worded e-mail. Years ago, I (and probably thousands of others) sent an e-mail to Gourmet regarding the way they listed their ingredients in the instructional portion of the recipe. A recipe should read, "Add the sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger;" NOT "Add the sugar, the salt, the cinnamon, the nutmeg and the ginger." They now list ingredients in the more efficient manner.
I think I remember saying something like, "Your magazine would be markedly thinner if you cut out all the extraneous "the"s."
chiff0nade at 10:49AM on 07/24/08
I will definitely take a pass on that issue! While we're talking about strange re-org's, I hate Food & Wine's index being in the front. It's been that way awhile now, so maybe I am the only one, but why!???? "Look we're different, so it must be cool?" I hate searching through thte first 20 pages for the index everytime I try to find something....Saveur does it too, but somehow it is easier to find and it doesn't bother me as much. Maybe because there are fewer ads to wade through....OK, I've said enough....
Cary at 11:02AM on 07/24/08
I limit my purchasing of Gourmet to airports while traveling. I let my sub lapse because after years of subscribing, I decided I had my fill of advertising for yachts and diamonds.
chiff0nade at 11:03AM on 07/24/08
I haaaaaate the new arrangement too, and really don't like the magazine much. It seems to be a vehicle for selling Rolexs and private jets. Do those people really cook -- I'm sure a few do -- but I bet most of them just go to the restaurants written up in the front section.
The Gourmet Every Day part is my favorite too. A little sop thrown to us lowly peasants....
Blue Iris at 11:07AM on 07/24/08
I don't purchase magazines--at all--period (sorry Cook's Illustrated, I peruse your ATK recipes in the library). However, putting recipes in the back is disturbingly reminiscent of how they are cataloged in Ladies' Home Journal and Redbook (which I read at the dentist's).
HeartofGlass at 11:11AM on 07/24/08
I subscribed to Gourmet for decades. Saved every issue. Delighted many with their recipes. Then it changed. Too cold, too hip (dare I say that?). I've had subscriptions given to me in recent years, and I try to fall in love again, but it's not happening.
islandexile at 12:13PM on 07/24/08
I have to agree, I'm letting my subscription to Gourmet expire next month. I had the same issue with the recent, well, issue. I also agree about the ten-page advertisement sections of stuff I don't buy and places I'll probably never go.
I'll stick with CI, Fine Cooking, the occasional Food & Wine or Bon Appetit, and, yes, Cooking Light!
Mnemosyne at 1:00PM on 07/24/08
I also dislike the new photo-styling and font in the recently revamped Bon Appetit.
peggywm at 1:27PM on 07/24/08
After several years hiatus, I recently re-subscribed to Gournet bc a guy turning his life around from drugs and homelessness came to my door selling magazine subscriptions. Call me a sucker, but I didn't have the heart to say "no" after he earnestly told me about his kid and how much this job meant to him and his plans for the future.
I'm not lay-out savvy or think much about the composition of a photo, but I remember the barbecued pork issue and thinking that those people in the photos don't look like they know anything about good barbecue. You can't have a good barbecue butt and only four people. It makes no sense...unless you're super greedy. Also, the scenes at the lake looked cold, isolated, and dark, not summery at all. Over all there was a huge disconnect between the models, the food, and the theme.
I haven't looked at this issue yet, just got back into town the other day.
wookie at 1:54PM on 07/24/08
I stopped purchasing Gourmet when I discovered that all their recipes are available on Epicurious...or should I not admit to that (especially in light of the Cook's Illustrated/ATK commentroversy going on in another thread)? I was only buying it for the recipes, and agree with Blue Iris that the mag often feels a bit exclusive and elitist. I like to cook "gourmet" foods, but don't want to feel like an interloper or a pretender for trying to do so.
AliceBlue at 4:51PM on 07/24/08
@wookie, funny you mention the lake pics. i remember thinking something similar and then feeling horrible for the people in them -- if that was the june issue which came out in may, they probably took those pics in march or april at the latest. they probably WERE cold! haha.
megannesta at 5:07PM on 07/24/08
@AliceBlue: blue rules! Thanks for the tip about Epicurious.
Blue Iris at 5:10PM on 07/24/08
I actually didn't mind the recipes at the back too much - I'll admit it was confusing to find some of them though. I thought the content was pretty blah this month though - that bugged me more than the recipe location. Although the little piece about the beekeeping was interesting.
missus_p at 5:20PM on 07/24/08
Believe or not I stopped subscribing to Gourmet because of renewal tactics. I used to work in magazine circulation many lifetimes ago. When I realized how aggresively Conde Nast went after renewals, it really turned me off. The only way to subscribe these days is "automatic" renewal. I know that it is business and that they need to make money (ad $) in order to produce a good magazine. What happend to producing a good magazine, that people will really want to buy.
Sweetie at 5:33PM on 07/24/08
i think that ruth reichl is one of the best food writers in the world. editor, not so much. i didn't have any strong emotions about this particular issue one way or another but i will say that instead of reading it cover to cover, as i do with cooks and saveur, i flipped through it, read jane and michael stern, and forgot about it. i used to adore gourmet but it's becoming increasingly uninteresting to me.
cybercita at 11:07PM on 07/24/08
^Yeah, I love--nay, worship--Ruth Reichl, have read all of her books, so I was surprised to see this thread, and also have been surprised when I have flicked through Gourmet and found it (and even the Epicurious recipes) pretty uninspiring.
HeartofGlass at 8:03AM on 07/25/08
I am sorry I re-subscribed. I dont enjoy their magazine any longer, too much advertising and the recipes aren't anything I am interested in making.
cookingdunkinstyle at 8:55AM on 07/25/08
WHy do cooking mag's always end up burning? Food and Wine used to be more about food and wine as a compliment. I let my reecent sub run out bc I was tired of more wine ads than food pages plus the wine pages. ugh. They should change the title to WINE w. a tiny bit of food.
jdshd at 11:40AM on 07/25/08
Gourmet- I hate the font- it all looks like ads!
Please someone tell me that Saveur will be better? I just subscribed to it on a trial basis.
bisbee at 11:51AM on 07/25/08
I like the new Gourmet more this past year than I have in recent past years.
But more than the magazine, I love the website Gourmet.com - it allows amazing access to not only the current issues but also issues going way back.
foodvox at 12:19PM on 07/25/08
Detest! Despise! Separating the recipes from the menus and pictures makes no sense and makes identifying and choosing what to cook so much more difficult. What were they thinking?
domesticagenda.blogspot.com
delaklug at 12:33PM on 07/25/08
bisbee, I hope you'll love Saveur. It is the next evolutionary step after gourmet; the writing and photography take food (and high-status foodies) off the pedestal, and they're just as much in love with a regional candy bar and with a new type of caviar.
In fact, I always find that I know/have used at least 30% of the foods, merchants, etc. which they pick for Saveur's 100 every year. Granted, I'm a foodie and I live in New York, but I'm no millionaire. Yet they chose my favorite butcher (Fleischer's Organic of Kingston and Rhinebeck, NY), my favorite fruit, my favorite old cookbook, etc. etc. etc...they are very much in touch with "good living", whether it costs one dollar or a thousand.
That being said, I'm sorry so many people resent Gourmet's high-end tone. It's an aspirational magazine, that's all. I love looking at the fold-out spreads of GE Monogram kitchens, meanwhile wondering how I and my favorite handyman might be able to rig up a deep-freeze or a rotisserie like the one in the picture, for half the price. And why women always seem to be wearing riding beeches in these things.
annien at 6:57PM on 07/25/08
Saveur is the most usable form of food porn I have ever seen. The pictures are extraordinary, the recipes are fantastic and the subject matter far exceeds stuff published in other magazines. Enjoy your subscription, I certainly enjoy mine! :D
chiff0nade at 11:43PM on 07/25/08
And why women always seem to be wearing riding beeches in these things.
annien at 6:57PM on 07/25/08
Ha ha ha ha ha
Yeah.
Seems to me that Gourmet is headed towards a focus on food culture rather than food-and-recipes. It's an intellectual shift - just looking through the prism with a different eye.
Hard to do in riding breeches. Usually it's done in granny dresses.
foodvox at 11:05AM on 07/26/08
Oh, it was bad and the editor's need to be reading this blog!
Hunnyoil at 6:16PM on 07/26/08
What strikes me as funny is this: magazine publishers sell ads. Doesn't it behoove them to get you to look at as many ads as possible?
So then doesn't it make sense to remove detailed indices or tables of contents? They should make you flip through every page, devouring every word, picture, recipe (and ad).
I haven't seen the latest Gourmet, but one argument for clustering recipes at the back of the book is to run an ad on each recipe page. Then, when someone copies it (PHOTOcopies it, people), they have the ad preserved in perpetuity in their kitchen. Seems like I could sell that ad for a lot more $, no? ;)
But again, not sure they're smart enough to do this -- particularly when it took a protest to get them to remove unnecessary gerunds.
tmj529 at 11:51PM on 07/26/08
My copy came in last night . . . DH and I looked it over and we hate it. You cannot look at a recipe while you look at the coordinate article. This is going to make me cranky if the format stays like this . . . I just renewed our subscription and now I am thinking about cancelling if the format does not improve.
Mizbee at 1:08AM on 07/27/08