Magazines

Food Marketers: Learn From BP's Mistakes

by Slashfood Editor, Posted Jun 10th 2010 @ 4:00PM

Photo Illustration: Lance Page/Truthout.org, Flickr

The walls here at the Slashfood offices are hung with a number of flat-screen TV's, all broadcasting various news channels 24 hours a day. As of late, many of those screens are filled with painful images of oil-coated wildlife and a spewing brown plume that never sleeps. It's fair to say this sad event is weighing heavily on our collective minds, which is why this astute article from The Atlantic caught our attention: Writer Hank Cardello draws clever parallels between BP's mishandling of the oil disaster with another national nightmare -- obesity.

If executives take away his three lessons, maybe something good will come out of this nightmare after all.

[The Atlantic]

Filed under: Magazines, Health & Medical, Food Politics, News

Molecular Gastronomy Starter Kit - I Tried It!

COMMENTS 16

by Alexa Weibel, Posted Jun 7th 2010 @ 1:00PM

Red fruit caviar. Photo: Courtesy ThinkGeek.com

Perhaps the largest breakthrough in cooking in the last decade, molecular gastronomy -- or "playing with powder," as David Lebovitz puts it -- is an art form that has some diners widening their eyes in wonderment and others shaking their heads in disbelief.

Popularized by Ferran Adria's soon-to-be-shuttered El Bulli in Spain and, later by Wylie Dufresne at New York City's WD-50, the avant-garde cuisine takes the ordinary to extraordinary levels. As Frank Bruni put it in 2005, the "sci-fi cooking" has been known to "toy with unusual textures, play with wildly unlikely flavor combinations and generally venture in directions that might turn out to be silly, but then again might not." Pondered Lebovitz, "Just like Matisse was widely-panned for painting a woman's face with a green stripe down the middle, I think we're going to have to let time tell us if this is just a passing fancy or if it's something that's here to stay."

And though the still-kicking buzz of molecular cooking has died down - quite likely as a result of the prohibitively high cost of restaurants embracing it as their specialty - it may now create another stir, as it is released in a user-friendly form to the general public.

Filed under: Magazines, Trends, How To, New Products, Gadgets

Cook's Illustrated vs. Food52

COMMENTS 7

by Jan Ellen Spiegel, Posted Apr 28th 2010 @ 5:00PM

Photo: Cook's Illustrated, Food52

In the age of culinary smackdowns, this one might not be quite up there with the drama of a Batali-Flay Iron Chef food fight, but in terms of Web chatter, it takes the cake. Or should we say the pork shoulder and sugar cookies.

Those are the two dishes on the hotplate as the venerable Cook's Illustrated magazine (a.k.a. America's Test Kitchen), the geeky arbiter of perfect kitchen technique, and the upstart Food52.com, the people-powered website started about a year ago by N.Y. Times food columnist Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs.

Last October, Cook's founder Christopher Kimball on his blog challenged Hesser (though the direct reference to her was later removed) to see which would produce the best recipes: Cook's with its strictly controlled testing and development procedures, or Food52's egalitarian method in which the public submits recipes to a weekly contest, Hesser and Stubbs cull the entries and the public determines the winner.

"We think ours produces a kind of richer recipe and it's more directly connected to people and our culture," Hesser said. "Ours is equal quality, just a different style."

Filed under: Magazines, On the Blogs

Food & Wine's 'Best New Chefs' 2010

COMMENTS 0

by Slashfood Editor, Posted Apr 7th 2010 @ 2:00PM

iPhone

The impressive roster of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs was released yesterday and, according to Grub Street, they appropriately celebrated their newly distinguished honor with a party catered by Andrew Carmellini, Paul Liebrandt, and Daniel Humm.

2010 F&W Best New Chefs

Roy Choi Kogi - BBQ truck, Los Angeles
Matt Lightner - Castagna, Portland, OR
Clayton Miller - Trummer's on Main, Clifton, VA
Missy Robbins - A Voce, New York City
Jonathon Sawyer - The Greenhouse Tavern, Cleveland, OH
Alex Seidel - Fruition, Denver
Mike Sheerin - Blackbird, Chicago
John Shields - Town House, Chilhowie, VA
Jason Stratton - Spinasse, Seattle, WA
James Syhabout - Commis, Oakland, CA

See all the winners and past winners on Food & Wine's site or their new iPhone app.

Filed under: Magazines, Chefs

Magazine for Kids Tackles Healthy Eating

COMMENTS 2

by Nicki Gostin, Posted Mar 31st 2010 @ 4:00PM

Photo: Courtesy of ChopChop

A new quarterly magazine and website for kids (aged 5 to 12) has just been launched. Called ChopChop, it aims to teach children how to cook and eat healthy food. Its founder and president Sally Sampson is the author of 20 cookbooks and she also has a daughter who suffers a chronic illness.

The genesis of the magazine started from her conversations with various doctors about childrens' diets.

"Pediatricians told me that healthy eating is all they talk about with patients," Sampson told Slashfood. "ChopChop very quickly morphed from a pamphlet that doctors could hand out during well-care visits into a magazine."

150,000 copies of the first issue have been distributed to doctor's offices, supermarkets and boys and girls clubs in 32 states.

Filed under: Magazines

Paula Deen's Sons Create A Food Magazine for Guys

COMMENTS 25

by Catherine Donaldson-Evans, Posted Mar 9th 2010 @ 2:00PM

Deen Brothers Magazine Photo: Hoffman Media

Hey, y'all, listen up! There's a new food magazine just for you fellas, created by none other than Paula Deen's boys.

The frosted blond TV chef's two sons, Jamie and Bobby, have launched their own quarterly magazine called Deen Bros. Good Cooking. Target audience? Men.

Hoffman Media, which already puts out the bimonthly Cooking with Paula Deen, will be the publisher for the 63-year-old Food Network host's boys, too. President and CEO Phyllis Hoffman tells Slashfood that Deen Bros. will aim to attract a "dual audience" of male and female readers, but will offer "light, easy recipes" that will likely "have strong appeal with men."

Bobby and Jamie Deen, who are 39 and 42, have made appearances on their mother's various Food Network shows over the years and hosted one themselves in 2006 called Road Tasted. When they're not in the public eye, the Deen brothers are in Savannah, Ga., running their mom's now-famous restaurant, The Lady and Sons.

Filed under: Magazines, Celebrities

Rolling Stone Magazine to Open a Restaurant

COMMENTS 10

by Jennifer Lawinski, Posted Dec 4th 2009 @ 4:30PM

Photo: MyEyeSees, Flickr

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.

Filed under: Magazines, Food News, Chefs & Restaurants, Restaurants

What Can I Get You Folks? - Reader's Digest Reveals Restaurant Secrets

COMMENTS 22

by Hanna Raskin, Posted Dec 4th 2009 @ 11:00AM

Photo: House of Sims, Flickr

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.

Filed under: Magazines, Chefs & Restaurants, Restaurants

Tom Colicchio Road Trips in a Porsche

COMMENTS 1

by Slashfood Editor, Posted Nov 16th 2009 @ 12:30PM

Emile DeFelice and Tom Colicchio and a country ham at historic Anson Mills. Photo: Courtesy of Tom Colicchio

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]

Filed under: Magazines, On the Blogs, Celebrities

A Photographic Ode to End of Gourmet

COMMENTS 0

by Lisa Schweitzer, Posted Nov 2nd 2009 @ 1:30PM

Photo: whitneyinchicago, Flickr.

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.

How will you replace Gourmet?
I can't and won't.	52 (51.5%)
I'll probably just read Bon Appetit since I'll receive it as long as my Gourmet subscription lasts.	17 (16.8%)
I'll read food and wine coverage online at various Web sites.	32 (31.7%)

Filed under: Magazines, Food News