Food and Cooking Magazines You Still Subscribe To

[radtek]

Cooks Illustrated and their aggressive email marketing.

[hathor]

Flipping pages online is a needless PITA. All those "reader" programs are hideous at best.

 

For reading...really reading...layout should be traditional print-ish without all the clickbait/links that distract and irritate. They are tolerable on a website but not in something that is meant to be read and savored.

 

Online magazines can be done well, I think. The trick is to minimize clicks and distractions...eg make an illustration appear without a click. Anything integral to the piece should just appear as it would in a magazine. If you want to link a reference, fine; but not a table or a photo.

Thanks for the comments. I hear you on the clickbait. It dumbs down the whole page. 

99% of my reading is done digitally, in part because it feels more eco-groovy, in part because it's so portable. 

Also love the multi-media aspect of digital. You can put in as many pics or illustrations as you want (or as memory allows). 

It's liberating. 

[Shel_B]

I no longer subscribe to any magazines, although I never subscribed to many.  Years ago there was Cuisine, now gone (I still have two or three copies in a desk drawer), CI for a year or two back in 2002 or so.

 

I pick up copies of Edible East Bay when at the Berkeley Farmers Market, but it's not so much for recipes as it is for keeping a finger on the local food scene, and for getting ideas.  Toots subscribes to Sunset, which is very enjoyable reading for not only their recipes but for travel and vacation ideas and gardening ideas.

 

There is a big rack of older magazines at the Senior Center where I teach, and often I'll look through what's available for food-oriented magazines (as well as some of my other favorites).

[blue_dolphin]

Over in the thread on an article about Steve Sando and Rancho Gordo beans in Sunset magazine, and related to her post above, @JoNorvelleWalker posted the following:

On February 8, 2016 at 11:28 AM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

To expand a bit on what I wrote above, our library offers Sunset (and many other magazines) online via a service called Flipster.  (Though I had a hard time paging past a gorgeous chocolate advertisement to make it to the beans.)  And of course we have the hardcopy.

 

Check with your local library!  The photographs are beautiful.  Even the one of Steve.

 

 

I know libraries are a good source of hard copy print magazines and I use my library's ebook service to read books on my iPad but I didn't know about the digital magazine offerings so I thought I'd add it over here for others who might be interested.   My library uses Zinio instead of Flipster and they don't have access to Sunset, but they do have Cooks Illustrated, Saveur, Bon Appetit, and others with access to the current and recent back issues and available on desktop or mobile devices.  The interface is not obnoxious and there's a print function that makes it easy to print or save a page as a pdf.  

 

Thanks for the tip, @JoNorvelleWalker!

[Susie Q]

Growing up my Mama subscribed to Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Southern Living, Sunset and later Fine Cooking. I miss those old issues they taught one how to cook and the articles were so informative. I kept Gourmet  and Fine Cooking subscriptions after she died and added Saveur. I gave up on up on Cooks Illustrated, too repetitive, but I check it out of the library here and there along with Lucky Peach,  I'm down to Fine Cooking and Saveur. I'm seriously considering not renewing Saveur. Haven't like the magazine since the editor change.  It's drifted from what it used to be. They really turned me off when they started hawking love potions in the back o the magazine. Geeze!

[Anna N]

29 minutes ago, Susie Q said:

Growing up my Mama subscribed to Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Southern Living, Sunset and later Fine Cooking. I miss those old issues they taught one how to cook and the articles were so informative. I kept Gourmet  and Fine Cooking subscriptions after she died and added Saveur. I gave up on up on Cooks Illustrated, too repetitive, but I check it out of the library here and there along with Lucky Peach,  I'm down to Fine Cooking and Saveur. I'm seriously considering not renewing Saveur. Haven't like the magazine since the editor change.  It's drifted from what it used to be. They really turned me off when they started hawking love potions in the back o the magazine. Geeze!

 I totally lost interest in Fine Cooking when it seemed to be much graphics and white space and very little information. I had a quick look at an online issue recently and they seem to have reverted back to an earlier time on the magazine looks once again quite interesting. Your take on this? 

Edited July 22, 2016 by Anna N (log)

[JohnT]

Food and cooking magazines in South Africa are not the best and there is not much choice. We do not get many overseas magazines and the few we do get, tend to be published in the UK. The few local magazines we do get also tend to take recipes from the Internet and tend, often, to use photographs that are not local, using ingredients that are not available in the country - in other words, nobody has even tested the recipe. Thus, I seldom ever buy any food related magazine.

 

But, it is still interesting to flip through the food sections of some of the female targeted magazines. To be able to do this, there is one solution and that is to pick your doctor well, arrive a bit early for an appointment and have your cell phone camera working. One doctor I take my wife to every six months had a really crap selection of 4 x 4 and camping magazines and I told him so. He asked for me to email him a selection I would like to see and now his waiting room has a good selection.  His receptionist even thanked me. Sometimes it helps to speak your mind!

[rotuts]

I still get Fine Cooking.

 

I think its decent for a dying breed.  they seem to 'teem-up' with a sponsor and have their Rx attached to the page.

 

they are trying to survive.

 

the last issue   ( Aug/Sept ) didn't have the Mix and Match that I enjoy, indeed they may no longer do that.

 

that sort of thing give me ideas.

 

they did have something similar  " Grain Bowl " where the covered a version, then went on to show variations.

 

Ill keep my Sub. going until the Very End.

 

Lucky Peach and the Test conglomerated  i get from the library from time to time, in bulk

Edited July 22, 2016 by rotuts (log)

[MelissaH]

Once upon a time, my husband and I had a subscription to the BBC Good Food magazine. We enjoyed it because it was so different than most of the U.S. magazines, but the subscription was ridiculously expensive. Out of curiosity, I looked recently at an iPad subscription, and discovered that it was much more reasonably priced than the old-fashioned paper subscription. I haven't done anything more than just look at the price.

 

We still have a paper subscription to Fine Cooking, which gets us access to the iPad version as well. We have every single regular issue starting from #1, which makes me feel bad about possibly cancelling or getting rid of the shelf-ful of paper. (The subscription's been a gift from my parents to my husband since the early days of our marriage.) I also get a paper version of Lucky Peach, which I like because the pages are so carefully composed and the content is a breath of fresh air (although if you wait long enough, it seems they eventually put everything on line). I have Saveur and Bon Appétit on my iPad.

[gfron1]

I just picked up Jarry which is an LGBT themed cheffy food magazine. Looks good so far.

[Anna N]

3 hours ago, MelissaH said:

Once upon a time, my husband and I had a subscription to the BBC Good Food magazine. We enjoyed it because it was so different than most of the U.S. magazines, but the subscription was ridiculously expensive. Out of curiosity, I looked recently at an iPad subscription, and discovered that it was much more reasonably priced than the old-fashioned paper subscription. I haven't done anything more than just look at the price.

 

We still have a paper subscription to Fine Cooking, which gets us access to the iPad version as well. We have every single regular issue starting from #1, which makes me feel bad about possibly cancelling or getting rid of the shelf-ful of paper. (The subscription's been a gift from my parents to my husband since the early days of our marriage.) I also get a paper version of Lucky Peach, which I like because the pages are so carefully composed and the content is a breath of fresh air (although if you wait long enough, it seems they eventually put everything on line). I have Saveur and Bon Appétit on my iPad.

The BBC does manage to pack lots into a single issue with plenty of variety. 

[aliénor]

i gave up on my home subscriptions, but find i still ilike to go over the mags.  so i did the next best thing (at least to me), i gave our local library subscriptions to ci, food and wine, and fine cooking. this way i can satisfy my need to read, not accumulate all those magazine (that i usually stockpile) and perform a service to the library and the community of readers.  makes me feel good. also i am using the internet more and more and then i  store my favorite recipes on "save to nyt cooking"

[DianaB]

I subscribed to http://www.foudepatisserie.com in print for a year, there was a huge fuss over the excellence of this publication when it first came out.  I found the photographs enticing but the few recipes I tried were no great success so I didn't renew.

 

More recently various blogs have criticised the magazine for inaccurate and untested recipes.  Seems I was not alone in finding problems.  A pity, the potential was enticing but it is disappointing to invest time and money on a recipe that can't work.

 

I've not seen their savoury recipe magazine, might take aloof when next in France but doubt I shall subscribe.

[Tere]

Hubby subscribes to the World of Fine Wine mag which I always think I should read if I am going for the WSET Diploma, then don't  But at least the back catalogues are there. He says quite a few of the articles are interesting.

 

There's been a few interesting articles in FT's How to Spend It, as well, which he has access to as a subscriber, so I in theory do, but am lazy

 

Not a mag, but we have a Jancis Robinson sub.

[DianaB]

@Tere' reference to How to Spend It reminds me that Rowley Leigh's columns in the FT Saturday magazine make good food oriented reading.  They were a weekly occurrence until recently, all can be viewed without charge via the FT website.  If there was a food based magazine with writing as informed and interesting as his columns I would happily subscribe. 

 

ETA How to Spend It content has its own app, free of charge and with additional material to the print version.  

Edited July 31, 2016 by DianaB (log)

[Okanagancook]

I like fine cooking.  They have in depth article on selected topics, such as yogurt, lemon bars, shopping for shrimp, panna cotta to name a few.  I like their recipes, not as 'busy' as those from Bon Appetite.  I also get Food and Wine because at $1.00 an issue who wouldn't?

 

i enter bookmarks for recipes I want to make in my Eat Your Books file so I can search these recipes.

[Shelby]

I just got an email from Amazon saying that my Saveur magazine is no longer available.  I did a quick google but I couldn't find anything.  Are they stopping their print magazine or is it just an Amazon stoppage?

[MokaPot]

59 minutes ago, Shelby said:

I just got an email from Amazon saying that my Saveur magazine is no longer available.  I did a quick google but I couldn't find anything.  Are they stopping their print magazine or is it just an Amazon stoppage?

 

Looks like Saveur mag got sold. I used to have a print subscription.

 

[gfweb]

That would be a shame.

 

[Shelby]

Well that sucks.  I look forward to that magazine.

[heidih]

I mourned Gourmet. I'd go to the big new stand in downtown L.A. and get the first copy I could (he saved me one). Set my cooking mood for the whole month. Saveur I liked but in a different way.  Now it seems too much internet and other media output that is just thrown out there. Ch-ch-ch-changes...

[ElsieD]

I was a big fan of both Gourmet and Cooking Light.  Paid advertising has moved in a big way from print to internet sources and so we are slowly losing hard copies eg magazines and newspapers.  With the loss of newspapers we have also lost a lot of investigative journalism which I mourn more than cooking magazines.  Who/what will be left to speak truth to power?

[rotuts]

I still get Fine Cooking.

 

its shrinking in size.

 

A inovation , they have ads w Rx's from Fine Cooking 

 

ie FC devised them and tested them

 

will be sad when it goes.

[Maison Rustique]

I have been getting Bon Appetit because it was ridiculously cheap, but I've become very disinterested in it. I just don't find much of interest in it any more. Maybe I'm too old and not urban enough to be their audience. 

 

I have been having a great time going through the thousands of recipes I ripped out and clipped from magazines and newspapers over the past 40 years or so. It certainly makes food and food magazine trends apparent. And also shows how my own cooking and food preferences have changed over the years.

[ElsieD]

3 hours ago, rotuts said:

I still get Fine Cooking.

 

its shrinking in size.

 

A inovation , they have ads w Rx's from Fine Cooking 

 

ie FC devised them and tested them

 

will be sad when it goes.

 

Yes, I still get that one along with Canadian Living.