Favorite food magazines?

[annie]

I'm looking into getting a gift subscription for a friend's birthday. He's a busy guy with not much time to cook, but when he does, he's a pretty good one -- wondering if fellow hounds had any suggestions?

[Karl S.]

Simple Cooking. Very different that the usual fare, but the best of the lot; not a magazine but a newsletter.

[redglass]

I just subsribed to a magazine called "Chow" (www.chowmag.com, I think). Looks like it's aiming towards we younger 'hounds and the hipper side of food and cooking. Might be fun- but a downside is that right now it's only 6x a year.

[Nyleve]

I subscribed because I was curious. It turns out to be a mag much more suited for cookers my kids' age than myself. So...I'm passing the magazine along to my 22-year-old son who thinks it's great. Perfect solution - I get to look it over, then it goes where it can really be useful.

Hate Gourmet. Just gave up subscription after, honestly, about 20 years. I couldn't take it anymore.

[Candy]

I just gave up Gourmet too. RR has dumbed the thing down so badly that it is now cooking for beginners and celeb. chasers. Bon Aooetite has improved in the pst year or so and F&W? ...well I like the new issue on Spain but am pretty luke warm about it in general. I always look forward to a new Saveur.

I used to like Eating Well but it is so carb laden that I have let it go.

[twodales]

Fine Cooking
Saveur
Food & Wine

[GG Mora]

Saveur. Entirely authentic, and the recipes are very well tested.

[Carb Lover]

Completely agree about Saveur (see link). It was 1996 and Saveur was the first cooking mag I ever bought. Lured by articles on Vietnamese food, how to make authentic paella. Have subscribed to other food mags along my culinary journey, yet Saveur remains my favorite. Perfect marriage of food and journalism. Still have that first issue...

Link: http://www.saveur.com/

[bob oppedisano]

Concur: Saveur, without question. I re-read issues frequently just for the pleasure of discovery. I also enjoy Ed Behr's newsletter The Art of Eating and Cook's Illustrated, from time to time, for precisely those reasons mentioned by others. And while now's not the occasion for extended criticism, I have to express constant disappointment and not a little annoyance with both Food and Wine and Gourmet for treating all the arts of eating as if they were some smiley face celebrity party. I've read my last gushy article about models and their designer spouses having rustic "vineyard" dinners for 12.

[suzannapilaf]

From time to time I am forced to get rid of collected magazines. The only ones I WILL NEVER give up are my Saveurs going back almost to the first issue. It totally makes my evening to find it in my mail.

[RibDog]

I completely agree about Saveur. I always look forward to receiving each issue.

John

[Jim Washburn]

Either Fine Cooking or Saveur would be great choices. I also like Cook's Illustrated, but it's not for everybody.

Jim

[Dorothy]

I love Cook's Illustrated.

And, not to be sexist, but I think it would appeal to a man, especially if he's nerdy or an engineer type: Cook's is all about (pretty well) controled experimentation and the "whys" of cooking -- why butter instead of olive oil, why 4 egg instead of 2 or 6, why brown meat before braising it, and so forth.

[Wendy B]

I love Cook's Illustrated as well...kinda like the Alton Brown of magazines...I also subscribe to Cooking Light which I look forward to arriving as well.

[TP]

SAVEUR, SAVEUR, SAVEUR.

[Zoe]

That's a magazine to read from cover to cover, every word. Saveur rocks.

[Serge]

you can have your cake and eat it too!

Send him the link to THIS board!
This is the MOST knowlegable and cheerful group of people I ever met on the net in the last 9 years...

Link: http://www.chowhound.com

[Paul Lukas]

My favorite is Saveur. But given your description of the recipient -- a good cook, but a busy one -- a better option might be Everyday Food, the digest-sized magazine put out by the Martha Stewart people. No articles, no stories, just good, solid recipes with short explanations about basic cooking techniques and ingredients. I've been surprised by how good it is.

In short: Saveur is for people who want to know the stories and history behind food and eating traditions; Everyday Food is just about cooking.

-- Paul

Link: http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jht...

[dpw206]

I second Everyday Food. I got a subscription as a gift, saw Martha Stewart, and went "Ugh"-then I started using it. It's really, really good.

[twinmommy]

I enjoy Fine Cooking for the way it walks you through a recipe. It's a good learning to cook magazine. Everyday Food is good for simple dinner ideas.

[Cathy Elton]

I love to read Saveur, but find that I never actually get around to making the recipes. Not sure it's a practical choice for someone who doesn't have much time to cook.

Lately, I'm really into Eating Well magazine. It was a quarterly, but is now bi-monthly. It has a definite healthy food focus, which I like. With a lot of the other cooking magazines, most of the recipes are too heavy on the butter, cream and cheese for me.

[Caitlin McGrath]

No kidding, Eating Well has gone bimonthly? I subscribe (and renew gift subscriptions annually) and I hadn't noticed. I like it a lot, and it's quite accessible. They've made a point recently of increasing the number ogf quick recipes. I also feel that when they do features on international cuisines, the guest contributers usually keep it quite authentic. Interesting articles, both on health issues and cultural stuff (e.g., Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, traditional tea farmers, etc.).

Link: http://www.eatingwell.com

[Carb Lover]

I actually have used many recipes in Saveur. They seem both authentic but very doable for the avg. to above avg. cook. Few that come to mind: Italian braciole, buche de noel, Viet cha ca, paella, Maida Haetter's cakes, souffles from Cafe Jacqueline in SF, pierogis.

Their international coverage is quite astounding, and I love how it's part cooking, history, culture, and travel rolled into one. Not to mention the beautiful photojournalism.

[Nettie]

I gave up Bon Appetit/Gourmet because I was tired of seeing articles with beautiful people whipping up extravagant dinners. In Saveur they look like real people, not models.

Oddly, I also find that I don't make many recipes out of Saveur. But there is plenty for me to read--maybe I'm more interesting in reading about the food than I am in finding more recipes. When I come home at the end of a long day and find it in my mailbox, I end up curling up with it and reading it through before I do anything else.

[Gayla]

I've subscribed at one time or another to almost every food magazine known to man, plus dozens of professional trade magazines. I'll add a "me too" on the rec for Saveur, I always look forward to it's arrival in my mail box.

I have had a subscription to Gourmet since 1968 (I *was* very young) and will NOT renew when the current one ends. This used to be my favorite magazine and the recipes very good and well tested. The magazine has been so gutted and trivialized it's useless and I haven't had a recipe in Gourmet grab my attention and demand to be tried out in ages.

If your friend likes Italian food I can vouch for Cucina Italiana. I subscribed to that for a few years and liked everything I cooked out of it.

Right now I find that I am cooking most from either Marth Stewart Living (and I can not believe I just admitted to that on a public forum) and a magazine called Cuisine at Home. I received a sample copy of Cuisine at Home and wasn't interested at first, but the more I looked through the magazine, and the more recipes I tried, the more I found I really liked it. Not a lot of fluff, not dumbed down, pretty straightforward with interesting topics.

[jen kalb]

I was interested in the mention of Cuisine at Home. My Mom gave me a subscription and its actually pretty good - no ads, pitched at a entry level, lots of encouraging instruction/pix to lead through recipes and rather interesting recipes, too.

[annie]

Thank you all so much for the great suggestions - it seems like Saveur is the head of the pack. I'm sure he will appreciate this subscription, thanks again!

[Laurella]

My sister fits the description you gave of your friend, so what we did for her this year was give her a gift subscription to Cook's Illustrated Online. She loves it!
This means that when she does have time to cook, she benefits from great recipes with rigorous testing (and science stuff as someone else mentioned) without having to dig through back issues. Additionally, Cook's online will also create a grocery list for you of recipes you select, a fantastic feature.
If your friend falls in love with the online, he could always decide to get a magazine subscription, too (which is what we do in our house). I highly recommend an online subscription like this for a busy person.

[Funwithfood]

The ones I am actually inspired to cook from:
#1 Bon Appetit
#2 Food & Wine (only of late)
#3 Martha Stewart Living
#4 Cook's Illustrated

Note: The first comp issue of Saveur turned me off. They went on and on about how they were not like... (the mags I liked). Ironically, they rented names from the very cooking mags they maligned!

[Drew]

I used to get Gourmet and Bon Appetite - couldn't stand them anymore, for many of the same reasons others had listed. My worst peve?- especially with Gourmet, those scented perfume adds! I believe that fragrances and food DO NOT mix. They were the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I still like Food and Wine, as well as Chile Pepper. Saveur is very good as well.

[Don]

Right now I have a thing for Cook's Illustrated. Not the typical magazine, as they don't accept advertisements.. and aren't glossy. They do go through testing tons of tecniques and recipes to get the 'perfect' ny style cheesecakes, or ideal weeknight bolognaise, or beef carbonade, great eggplant parmesan.