A guide to beer additive hops, and the differences between what's fresh and dried.
The Minimalist makes Bok Choy with Shiitakes and Oyster Sauce.
Why do San Francisco residents eat local so fervently, yet drink European wines? Plus: A look at the primo vino locales in the Bay Area.
Room for Debate peeks into bento-box culture, wondering what aesthetically pleasing food says about Japan.
Michael Bao Huynh may think he's just a businessman, but he's building an empire of Vietnamese-inspired restaurants.
Avenue C's Summit Bar serves up classy cocktails with a side of laidback conversation.
Free and clear of "Gourmet," Ruth Reichl partakes in a Q&A with the Times.
A Good Appetite amps up wild salmon with brown butter cucumbers.
Recipe Redux takes a recipe for homemade Worcestershire sauce from 1876 and compares it to modern concoctions.
Food and Travel: Restaurateur Terence Conran starts new establishments in London, exploring the food of Charlevoix, Quebec farm country and Singapore's culinary melting pot.
Central Park South's Marea offers pricey seafood and atmosphere that's "unfussy, as welcoming as a luxe clubhouse."
$25 and Under finds a bunch of notable and classic Manhattan food carts.
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.
Gourmet may have closed, but Ruth Reichl still hit Kansas City to promote her new book, "Gourmet Today," at a special dinner.
A chat with local cook Carol LaBruzzo and a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup.
The PBS show "The Winemakers" includes a KC contestant: Ryan Sciara of Cellar Rat.
After "Julie & Julia," what should you read next? The Star says "My Life in France," "Alice Waters and Chez Panisse" and "Under the Table: Saucy Tales from Culinary School."
Westside Local offers everything from a classic roast-beef sandwich to a soup made of watermelon, cucumber and beets.
The magazine, owned by Conde Nast, has been published since December 1940. Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride are also slated for closure, the paper said.
"Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support," Ruth Reichl, the magazine's editor in chief, said Monday afternoon on Twitter. "It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."
The cuts come after a three-month study by McKinsey & Co., which looked at the publishing company's costs, the Times said.
In an e-mail obtained by Gawker, Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend said Gourmet will live on through television and books. "Gourmet magazine will cease monthly publication, but we will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet's book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com," he wrote. "We will concentrate our publishing activities in the epicurean category on Bon Appétit."
Drew Schutte, a senior vice president at Conde Nast Digital, said Gourmet.com would "remain up at least through the end of the year," Mediaite reports.
Sources tell Slashfood that staff has to be out of building by the end of day Tuesday.
Leave your thoughts about Gourmet's demise in the comments below.
"First let me introduce myself. I'm Craig Claiborne, and this is Julia Child." Photo: Scanned from A Feast Made for Laughter
"And to tell the truth, I was bored with restaurant criticism. At times I didn't give a damn if all the restaurants in Manhattan were shoved into the East River and perished. Had they all served nightingale tongues on toast and heavenly manna and mead, there is just so much that the tongue can savor, so much that the human body (and spirit) can accept, and then it resists. Toward the end of my days as restaurant critic, I found myself increasingly indulging in drink, the better to endure another evening of dining out. I had become a desperate man with a frustrating job to perform." -- from 'A Feast Made for Laughter' by Craig Claiborne, New York Times Dining editor and restaurant critic, 1982
While there have thus far been no reports of departing New York Times restaurant critic and newly-minted memoirist Frank Bruni tipsily pressing ham against the windows of the Second Avenue Deli, rolling members of the Cipriani family for spare change and Bellini drippings, or skulking through the catacombs at Ninja New York, randomly alarming the goofily hooded servers, it's not as if he's going silently into that last bite.
Frank Bruni is leaving the New York Times dining section. And food bloggers are freaking out.
In a world where restaurants live or die by the awarding of Bruni's stars, blogs like Eater declare this no less than an "Apocalypse." Bruni will be turning his attention to his new memoir come August, and will be a writer at large for the New York Times Magazine.
Now the hunt (and speculation) begins to locate a food critic with the ability to carry Bruni's swagger: Ryan Sutton at Bloomberg, one of the few fairly anonymous critics left in town? Perhaps the L.A. Times' S. Irene Virbila is waiting by her phone, since the Times has pulled from our rival city to the west (a la Ruth Reichl) in the past. Grub Street wonders if (gasp) a blogger will be chosen. And does anonymity, so hard to preserve in the Internet era, matter any more to Pete Wells, the dining editor at the Times?
Perhaps the most curious quote in Bill Keller's announcement is that Bruni "will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials." Uh, could someone get us a copy of those? Is there, like, a laminated round of foie gras passed from critic to critic? Frank, just drop us a line and let us know.
Yeah, it's a teensy bit Inside Baseball for the fooderati, but we got a big kick out of seeing our favorite Gourmet staffers (Wuzzap, Terrebonne? Lookin' fresh, Knauer and Houghtaling!) in a cute 'n campy Gourmet.com video sending up Editor-In-Chief Ruth Reichl's '90s tenure as an undercover restaurant critic for the New York Times.
Reichl's penchant for wearing outlandish disguises to protect her dwindling anonymity was the underpinning of her 2005 memoir Garlic and Sapphires, but somehow we doubt even she would have the quenelles to stomp into the Four Seasons' Pool Room wearing quite this much codpiece.
When my great-aunt Flora finally had to give up living independently and move into nursing facility, all my Philadelphia relatives pitched into help our cousin Betsy clean out her mom's apartment. A lifetime of furniture, dishes and objets d'art were given, donated, pitched and sold. I acquired a half-moon shaped hallway table, several very heavy pint glasses, and small selection of Flora's Gourmet magazine collection.
You see, Flora was something of a expert home cook, and from the time she finished medical school (she was a bit ahead of her time), she would often relax by going home and cooking elaborate meals. Gourmet magazine was her favorite supplement to frequent shopping and dining trips to Europe and over the years, she amassed a considerable collection of back issues. She read each issue cover to cover, and many of them bear the signs of being taken into the kitchen and cooked from.
When I heard the recent speculation that Gourmet will be one of the next major magazines to fold, I immediately thought of Flora (as well as the countless other people, myself included, who adore the magazine the Ruth Reichl helms). I hope it's not true, but worry (especially in light of some of the other recent glossy closures) that it's a prediction that will come to pass.
Just in case you're not certain that Obama is loved by foodies and farmers, read articles from food critics and writers, such as Ruth Reichl and David Kamp. Better yet, check out the blog Obama Foodorama. An article from the New York Times explains that the Obama family is viewed by many as one that cares about eating organic. Kim Severson states: "Mr. Obama looks like the first foodie president since Thomas Jefferson."
Tell me your national food concerns and I'll tell you why you're for Obama. Despite Obama's recent choice of Secretary of Agriculture, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsak, foodies around the nation view Obama as someone who will deliver change for both small farmers and ubran gastronomes alike. Yes, Vilsak supports alternative fuels like corn-based ethanol and is a proponent of biotechnology. Nevertheless, we can forgive Obama for not choosing someone like Alice Waters or Michael Pollen. With the current state of affairs(an ongoing war and the economic crisis), he has bigger fish to fry at the moment.
After the jump, find out specific requests from food critics, reformers, and chefs.
This interview on Amazon with Gourmet editor-in-chief and former NY Times food critic cements her even more firmly on my ultimate foodie dinner party guest list. Reichl loves food, appreciates food, even lives food but she's not hung up on it. Her writing always comes from this place of accessibility that makes you feel like you could cook for her without breaking into a nuclear sweat. My favorite detail from the interview is the elaborate disguises she used to avoid being spotted when reviewing restaurants. I haven't read her latest book yet but it sounds like a lot of fun.