Does anybody here subscribe or regularly read Bon Appetit?

[surrealAmerican]

I had subscribed to Gourmet, and they left me with a subscription to it. I'm not liking what I see here. It reads to me like it's written for people who don't much like to read or cook: all shortcuts and blurbs.

Was January's issue kind of a dud, or pretty typical of their work?

[The empressof all]

1. Bon Appetit is pretty mainstream for serious home cooks

It won't challenge your skills much but it can give some pretty good ideas and info. I liked Gourmet better as well. Have you looked at Saveur as an option. It's my favorite and tends to move into more international cuisines which I really enjoy.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. I second that about Saveur

Well written and interesting to read.

[pipoman]

3. I read it, it is given to me second hand..

it really is more helpful in learning the trends, terms, and just more general food information. I also get Taste of Home, it has to be the king of mid western comfort food periodicals and is mostly recipes, I use it quite a lot.

[hippywife]

5. Hi, Pips!

You probably missed this but you were being paged during the holiday season:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x72790

Glad to see you! :hi:

ETA: I see Taste of Home and Southern Living frequently because they come here for some of the residents who are no longer with us. Both have started becoming real shortcut types, i.e. using lots of prepared and processed foods in recipes, especially Taste of Home.

[NashVegas]

4. I Get BA

My feeling is, if I get one good idea that can become a long-term part of my menu, it's worth it.

[Warpy]

6. I went through a phase of reading those things in the 80s

and found a few recipes in Bon Appetit that were actually pretty good. I found ideas in Gourmet, but none of the recipes worked out for me.

Giorgio scratch'n'sniff ended the cooking magazine purchases. There was no way I could think about food when smelling the reek of that stuff.

I did, however, find out they discouraged moths very nicely.

[surrealAmerican]

7. I know what you mean about those smelly ads.

I used to tear them out and throw them away as soon as I opened the magazine, but you could always still smell the awful stuff. That said, in Gourmet there was usually a recipe or two every month that I would want to try, or at least get an idea from. Their deserts were particularly enticing.

[Warpy]

13. I discovered the moth repellent actions quite by accident

I had a sweater that I'd washed and was getting ready to put into a trunk with mothballs on top of a magazine opened to one of those things. A moth was in the room, would come in for a landing, catch a whiff, and buzz off faster than I've ever seen a moth buzz off. I watched this happen several times and realized the damned things were good for something.

They made the sweaters smell a tad better than mothballs the next winter, after the stench had dissipated over 4 months.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. I taught myself how to cook almost entirely from Bon Appetit and

the one cookbook I owned, A Better Homes and Gardens one that had decent uncomplicated recipes but a nice hand with the spices. I remember one beef stew in it had beef, red wine, onions, peas and olives with thyme, and orange peel as the secret ingrediant.

After that, I got interested enough to subscribe to Bon Appetit. Back then I thought Bon Appetit was more food and recipe oriented and Gourmet had become almost more of a travel magazine with giant photo spreads and recipes for things I wouldn't make in a thousand years, tripe and lentils as made by the nomads of the Kalahari or something along those lines.

Then Bon Appetit got way too fussy and Gourmet seemed to simplify and become more usable and I switched to Gourmet.

My absolute favorite in both magazines were the letters from readers that requested specific recipes from specific restaurants. I think a great magazine could be comprised from that one premise alone. You could cover every regions cooking, highlight great places and go from diner to haute in one place. I would call it Diners Requests

[kentauros]

8. When I did subscribe to cooking magazines, neither Bon Apetit

nor Gourmet whetted my appetite for that kind of magazine. I also had an odd means of determining if I was going to get much out of the magazine: what the first ad was about.

I can't remember which of the two it was now, but one of them replaced a subscription to another magazine that was going out of business. When I opened the magazine, the first ad was for Bentley. Okay, what does that have to do with cooking? That told me plenty about to whom the contents were being marketed and I wasn't in that class.

Cooks' (before it was Cooks' Illustrated) must have had a great sales group since the majority of their ads had something to do with the art. Now, of course, they have no ads and are still a high-quality cooking magazine :)

[katkat]

9. Gourmet

I used to like Gourmet a lot in its earlier years. Then it sort of fell apart in comparison, and I don't much care for the alternatives.

Nowadays, I read food blogs.

By the way, does anyone else read Cooking with Vickie (http://vickiescooking.blogspot.com)? She also has a Gardening in Michigan blog, and both fell off the web out of the blue a week or two ago, and her email address started bouncing. No notice that anything was wrong, she'd been posting almost daily. I am worried...

[katkat]

10. speaking of food blogs

What do you suppose that mouse is made of? Marzipan?

[Phentex]

11. or fondant....

it's cute!

[hippywife]

12. As much as I love some magazines, too,

I just don't want them stacking up. My house is too small as it is. Bill has a huge stack of his ham radio magazine that comes free with his membership in the ARRL. I'd love to get rid of them but he won't let me because they have projects in them.

[Phentex]

15. Mags have always been a school fundraiser here...

I think I have subscribed to every possible food mag available through the school at one point or another. Years ago, I had HUGE stacks that I thought I would go through and clip recipes from. I cannot believe how many I saved! I also can't believe I will admit this here, but I actually packed them in the trunk of my car and took them on a mini vaction with us. When the boys were in the pool, I sat on a chaise and went through the magazines and clipped and clipped. It was one of the few times I had time to go through them! AND THEN I hauled them back and put them in the recycle bin. I vowed I would never save them like that again. So far, so good.