Gourmet Magazine

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 2:09pm on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Former Gourmet Critic Shares Memories, Says Julia Child Devoured Costco Hot Dogs, The Arizona Daily Star reported on December 28, 2009:

"For more than 30 years, Caroline Bates, armed with an unerring palate and a way with words, wrote food reviews for the late, lamented Gourmet magazine.

"I felt total amazement that I was able to do this," says Bates, 78, whose last piece for Gourmet ran in February. The magazine's November issue was its last.

Petite and unpretentious, she shatters the stereotype of the snooty restaurant critic.
"When I started going to fancy restaurants, my editor knew I was not a fashion plate. She decided I needed a budget for clothes. I even got my hair done."

The full story:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/columnists/322945.php

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 9:48am on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

NYU To Receive Gift Of 3,500 Gourmet Cookbooks, the New York Times reported on December 15, 2009:

"Conde Nast shut down Gourmet in October after 75 years of publication. Marvin J. Taylor, director of the Fales library, said he knew that Ruth Reichl, Gourmet’s editor, thought Fales would be a good home for the books, “so I got on the horn right away when I heard the magazine was closing.” He said the cookbook author Rozanne Gold gave N.Y.U. $14,000 to buy the books from Conde Nast. They’ll be brought to the library later this week in about 500 boxes.

Fales has about 20,000 volumes about food, with 1,500 titles from before the 20th century."

The full story:
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/nyu-gets-gourmets-cookbook-library/

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 2:49pm on Sunday, October 11th, 2009

A Boston Globe editorial on October 7, 2009 was an unkind kind of obit for Gourmet magazine, titled "A recipe for obsolescence":

"Whisk together first three ingredients in a glossy vessel, until Gourmet, “the magazine of good living,’’ begins to form. Pour in money liberally. Add cooks one by one as needed, but please note: some domestic help will be necessary for readers to achieve desired results.

Freeze magazine in mid-20th-century high-end lifestyle, even as center of American food scene shifts away from the globe-trotting gentry and toward home cooks with adventurous palates but limited means."

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 4:11pm on Monday, October 5th, 2009

Condé Nast announced on October 5, 2009 that it will close Gourmet magazine and three others -- Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride.

The closure of Gourmet magazine, which has been published since 1941, is the biggest surprise. Cookie magazine was a relatively recent addition, launched in 2005.

Gourmet had a circulation of 978,000. Bon Appetit, another Conde Nast food magazine, is bigger at 1.352 million. The company will continue to publish Bon Appetit.

Conde Nast CEO Charles H. Townsend said the company made the decision because the magazines were losing money. He also said that none of the 180 employees of the magazines, including the Gourmet editor-in-chief, Ruth Reichl, are expected to stay with the company.