Magazines

When you think Rolling Stone, the first thing that comes to mind isn't usually food.

But the iconic music magazine is hoping to leverage some of its cool cache with the launch of the first Rolling Stone restaurant in Los Angeles, planned to open in the Hollywood and Highland Center -- down the block from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theatre.

The multi-level 10,000-square foot venue will be host a bar, restaurant, lounge and private-event space. The decor will try to evoke the magazine's edgy style with exposed black brick, tufted leather and vaulted ceilings around an antique iron staircase. The restaurant is slated to open in summer 2010.

No word yet, however, on what kind of grub the Rolling Stone will dish up or on who may be cooking it.

Kudos to the anonymous waitress in Manhattan, the unnamed server in suburban Chicago and the pizza-chain staffer who helped Reader's Digest assemble its story this month about restaurant secrets. Just in time for holiday dining, the expert panel has reminded restaurant-goers that it's not OK to let your shy kid order for himself on a busy night, whistle for service or leave a compliment instead of a cash tip.

I'd concur with just about every item on the list, most of which will be familiar to readers of this column. Not surprisingly, many of the gripes center on beverages, which seem to be the bane of the service biz. I was only slightly annoyed that a waitress revealed servers, who don't want to mess with the noisy, time-consuming process of mixing froufrou drinks, nearly always claim the frozen drink maker's broken; I'd hate for a customer to challenge my colleagues or me the next time we trot out that standard line.

Only a few of the touted secrets seem generated just to round out the list: I'd have serious concerns about the sanity of a server who told guests her "brother's off to war" in hopes of getting better tips, and I've never worked with anyone who would dare leave the alcohol out of a customer's cocktail.

But perhaps the story's most interesting secret isn't a secret at all: It's a question posed by Kansas City waitress Charity Ohlund, who blogs for frothygirlz.com.

What, like you thought the host of "Top Chef" was gonna haul his cookies cross-country in a Kia? Porsche handed Tom Colicchio the keys to a brand new Panamera 4S -- into which he promptly stuffed his assistant Liz and Craft's executive chef Damon Wise. The trio set off on a 1,200-mile, six day food odyssey stretching from Atlanta to Columbia, Charleston, Chapel Hill, the Chesapeake, Washington D.C., rural Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and back home to New York.

Said Colicchio in the inaugural post of his six-day stint on Food & Wine's 'Mouthing Off' blog, "It was about paying visits to some of the food producers who make my restaurants what they are, and discovering new ones the old-fashioned way. On this trip, the stops were the destination."

Yo, Tom? Next time, we call shotgun. The ham is welcome to sit on our lap.

[Via: Mouthing Off at Food & Wine]

Nostalgia abounds as the reality sinks in that Gourmet magazine is really gone: We'll never receive another issue in the mail. We'll never have another opportunity to crack the glossy binding holding together a new month's culinary content.

We're still adjusting to the news and no doubt you are, too. Check out this poignant photographic essay from Kevin DeMaria, the former associate art director of the magazine. It documents the offices, common areas and test kitchen of the magazine as staffers were looking back, packing up and moving out.

Some of the most notable "Gourmet" recipes never made it to the magazine. Through its 69-year run, the magazine's food editors and test kitchen staff developed hundreds of adventurous, experimental, personal and just plain luscious recipes that for one reason or another escaped the print edition. With Gourmet.com's 2008 launch, multimedia supplements to magazine features, test kitchen video throw-downs, staffers' favorites and perusals of family archives afforded the opportunity to showcase Web-exclusive content, and a chance to serve up these recipes to their more cyber-savvy readers.

Though an Oct. 13 Tweet by the magazine's Executive Editor John Willoughby advised followers to "Go to gourmet.com, copy Web-exclusive recipes that will disappear: strawberry dumpling, banana upside down cake, curried pork noodles, etc.", Slashfood has been told by other Condé Nast insiders that after the magazine's recent, sudden shuttering, the future of Gourmet.com content remains uncertain, save for mag-published recipes that will be migrated to sister site Epicurious.com.

We're not taking any chances. We've clicked our way through 300-plus Web-exclusive recipes from October 2005 to September 2009 to find the 25 you simply must copy, paste and collect before they're (possibly) lost to the ages.

1. Frozen Peanut Butter Pie with Candied Bacon
Recipe by Andrea Albin

2. Potted Stuffed Squab
Recipe by Edna Lewis

3. Confit Gizzard with Honey Mustard
Recipe by Ian Knauer

4. Savory Duck Fat Doughnuts
Recipe by Ian Knauer

Get more recipes -- including Dijon ice cream and zucchini whoopie pies -- after the jump.