Cooks Illustrated was a good introduction to food and cooking, but at this point, I'd probably recommend just buying one of their "Best Recipes" cookbooks and cherry-picking issues that appeal to you off the newsstand. (Unlike most magazines, there's almost no advantage to buying CI off the newsstand.) After awhile, there's a certain sameness to the issues and their opinions of what is "best" may vary significantly from yours. They also tend to lean toward the more conservative in terms of recipes.
I enjoy Gourmet quite a bit, both from a food and from a travel point of view. It's also a good way of getting wired into current trends in food in restaurants. They're a high-paying market so the quality of the writing is really high and occasionally comes from people on the fringes of the traditional food world like Pat Conroy or Tony Bourdain. I let my sub lapse this year because I was falling behind but will probably re-up because I miss it.
Saveur is a little younger, a little hipper, but I don't find myself cooking from it as much. Good travel pieces, with accompanying food, and a lot of light breezy pieces that make it good bathroom reading. If I could fuse Gourmet and Saveur, I'd probably have my perfect food mag, but for now, Gourmet edges it out in terms of quality and overall food appeal.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-03 03:34 pm (UTC)I enjoy Gourmet quite a bit, both from a food and from a travel point of view. It's also a good way of getting wired into current trends in food in restaurants. They're a high-paying market so the quality of the writing is really high and occasionally comes from people on the fringes of the traditional food world like Pat Conroy or Tony Bourdain. I let my sub lapse this year because I was falling behind but will probably re-up because I miss it.
Saveur is a little younger, a little hipper, but I don't find myself cooking from it as much. Good travel pieces, with accompanying food, and a lot of light breezy pieces that make it good bathroom reading. If I could fuse Gourmet and Saveur, I'd probably have my perfect food mag, but for now, Gourmet edges it out in terms of quality and overall food appeal.