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.
The approach of chilly weather may leave many craving warm libations, but this Vodka Rosemary Lemonade Fizz is truly a drink for all seasons. The bloggers of the Bitten Word tackled this Gourmet recipe, which eschews the usual infusion to instead create a simple syrup with sugar, rosemary and lemon juice subbing for water. The syrup can keep for weeks in the fridge and need only be topped with vodka and a dash of club soda to be served.
Rosemary adds a nice mouthfeel and complexity to the crisp, refreshing drink, but almost any herb will serve well in simple syrup, from lavender to Thai basil. Spill your simple syrup recipes or ideas in the comments.
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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.
Ashmead's Kernel apples may not be pretty, but they have "the most intense, complex flavor of any fruit in the world."
Harvest whites for the season include Hungary's Tokaj and Italy's Campania.
The ins, outs and tasty recipes for Chinese Bao -- "chewy-soft" steamed and stuffed buns.
Los Angeles has a lot of new dining spots in the works, ranging from a second location for Umami Burger to the upcoming Cafe Habana.
Restaurants: Venice's AK has become the Tasting Kitchen, with a "magic chef" and hunger-inducing dishes, and LA's Amalia morphs rustic Guatemalan cooking into "urbane cuisine."
Each week, we round up the top food articles we've spied Web-wide. This week, a special edition of our own bloggers' primo pieces from elsewhere on the Web.
We're not the only ones itching to get out the door and toast our friends in the Old Country (or the wonderful eats and drinks they've sent our way). For those who will celebrating the occasion at home, Chow has recipes for three lovely terrines; Serious Eats discovers the tapenades of Provence; and one of Slashfood's own beer columnists breaks down Saison style beer at Gourmet while his colleague tackles eight great aperitifs, several of which are French.
Perhaps the triumph of the online articles, however, is France Magazine's enormous feature on aperitifs. From Lillet to Suze to Noilly Prat, it's all there, and we'll be printing it out and tucking it into our bag. (They've just unlocked the online files especially for Slashfood.) Happy celebrating!
Certain things are just too hard to watch -- whether it's a friend's super-serious expression as she winds up to bowl or your boyfriend in the throes of "Guitar Hero".
That's how we felt upon discovering this video, a greatest-hits compilation of cocktail-shaking by New York City's top mixologists. The 10 minute long odyssey features 30-second clips of 33 mostly-male NYC barkeeps. It starts with the Cars provocative "Shake it Up" and trails off eerily into bar noise, the cacophony of shakers and fierce, game-face expressions.
Boring? Nope. Oddly mesmerizing, in the same way that you can't look away from "The Bachelor" but might put your hands over your eyes.
These are true practitioners of the art, however, so let us know if this gets you inspired to go practice your shakin' style, whether it's the one-hander (some bartenders put the other hand behind their backs, sommelier-style) or the hard shake practiced by Tailor's Eben Freeman. And here's a pretty raspberry-and-gin laced Belmont Stakes elixir from Gourmet (the race is on Saturday) in case you wish to practice your skills before the weekend hits.
Today the steely, dry-humored Maggie Ruggiero (the woman behind an astounding fried cubano) faces off against bald-pated Ian Knauer, who pulls the cross-armed, stern smackdown stance off rather better. The ingredient du jour? Avocado, sweet and savory. The savory dishes both have a certain Asian flair and the sweet (shown above) basically blew our minds and made us want to go use a blowtorch on everything in our kitchen cabinets. Avocado marshmallow on a stick?! Maggie, let's be friends. Ian, not to be outdone, turns out a gorgeous avocado creme brulée.
The two share a window through which they taunt one another, like a modern day Statler and Waldorf. Maggie on Ian: "Razzle dazzle; flash in the pan ... [I'm] someone who enjoys eating food and not just playing with it." Ian on Maggie: "We were born on the same day. She's a little older than I am. She's got experience on her side. I have youth." Oh, snap! Check the video, vote and let us know who you think owned it.
When new bloggers join the Slashfood team, we like to make sure they get a proper introduction to our readers. Meet the latest addition to our team, blog editor Alex Van Buren.
Do you have a personal blog?
Yes. It's where I post recent articles and scribble about various New York City food discoveries.
What is your day job, or rather, what do you do when you're not food blogging?
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.
Gourmet's Barry Estabrook investigates the plight of Florida tomato pickers. The following is an excerpt of his findings published on Gourmet.com.
A little slavery is okay, just not too much of it.
At this writing, that appears to be the official government position in the state of Florida, and it could explain why the fields of the Sunshine State provide such fertile ground for modern-day slavery. In the past dozen years, police have broken up and prosecuted seven slave operations there, freeing more than 1,000 men and women who were kept captive and forced to work for little or no money and threatened with death if they tried to escape. (For more on the plight of the Florida tomato pickers, see my article "The Price of Tomatoes" in the March 2009 issue of Gourmet.)
Late last year, two members of the Navarrete family, the operators of what has been recognized as the most brutal slave ring the state has seen, were sentenced to 12 years in prison; two others received lesser sentences. Justice having been done, it was an ideal opportunity for Governor Charlie Crist, who enjoys a very high approval rating, to spend a bit of that political capital to condemn the practice and announce bold steps to prevent it.
When new bloggers join the Slashfood team, we like to make sure they get a proper introduction to our readers. Meet the latest addition to our team, blog editor Alex Van Buren. 
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