the essentials of a food magazine.
during thanksgiving dinner last night, we used my december issue of Bon Appétit to insulate the table from the roasting pan which contained the turkey. at first i thought this impromptu solution was a good one,
for one thing, it certainly suits the grad student principle of "foodie thrift."
only to realise that it was a risky solution; i had carved too eagerly, and cut a hole through the aluminum of the pan. glorious turkey gravy and juices spilled onto that once-pretty gingerbread cookie photo cover, ruining it.
embarrassingly enough, my first thought was:
oh sh*t. why couldn't it have been the november issue?
i never use those thanksgiving recipes anyway.
but later today i thought about it, and realised that i never use many recipes anyway. in fact, i don't read half of the pages of Bon Appétit and when i subscribed, i never more that half of each issue of Gourmet magazine.
it would be nigh-impossible to read all the pages anyway; a fifth to a fourth of those glossy pages are full of ads and recipes within ads.
so what good are these magazines? ultimately, i can think of two things.
a few dozen glossy pages of fine looking foods, with a side column containing lists of the ingredients. they might be arranged in groups .. for example, a photo spread of a mediterranean-themed summer dinner.
in that rare event that i want to know more, there might be a url at the end of the list (uniform resource locator) linking to a web version of the recipe.
admittedly, i might also prefer a section like the 'bon vivant' section of Bon Appétit (i.e. the gadget section).
for one thing, it certainly suits the grad student principle of "foodie thrift."
only to realise that it was a risky solution; i had carved too eagerly, and cut a hole through the aluminum of the pan. glorious turkey gravy and juices spilled onto that once-pretty gingerbread cookie photo cover, ruining it.
embarrassingly enough, my first thought was:
oh sh*t. why couldn't it have been the november issue?
i never use those thanksgiving recipes anyway.
but later today i thought about it, and realised that i never use many recipes anyway. in fact, i don't read half of the pages of Bon Appétit and when i subscribed, i never more that half of each issue of Gourmet magazine.
it would be nigh-impossible to read all the pages anyway; a fifth to a fourth of those glossy pages are full of ads and recipes within ads.
so what good are these magazines? ultimately, i can think of two things.
- photos. they don't call it 'gastro-porn' for nothing. gluttony, realised through eating or not, is still a vice and kin to lust. in fact, one could argue that lust and gluttony are really the same; they are only different manifestations of the body's urges.
i like to think that behind my photo-fixation lies inspiration. when i read the steps of a recipe, i feel no excitement. but when someone shows me what the finished dish should look like, then i feel inclined to reckon it in some way.
maybe i will recreate it, or maybe i will modify it with only the parts that appeal to me. maybe it convinces me that one particular ingredient has more versatility than i had previously given it credit, and it will urge me to create something wholly new.
- lists of ingredients. read enough recipes, and most steps in cooking are either predictable or nonessential. either there are no new themes in cooking, or that the modern taste favors simplicity and simple steps in preparation. at any rate, i stand by my observation.
so what is truly of interest are the ingredients. in fact, sometimes i prefer NOT to know what steps to take; i'd rather try to reverse-engineer the recipe, based on what the final dish is supposed to be. if my recipe is the same, then there's no loss; if my recipe is different, then unless the magazine recipe is really that amazing ..
.. and few ever are ..
.. i would favor "my" recipe over the magazine version. call it the foodie version of the crossword puzzle or the word jumble.
a few dozen glossy pages of fine looking foods, with a side column containing lists of the ingredients. they might be arranged in groups .. for example, a photo spread of a mediterranean-themed summer dinner.
in that rare event that i want to know more, there might be a url at the end of the list (uniform resource locator) linking to a web version of the recipe.
admittedly, i might also prefer a section like the 'bon vivant' section of Bon Appétit (i.e. the gadget section).