Welcome back, and a word about the new eGullet

[Fat Guy]

Dear eGulleters,

Last month, we announced that eGullet would soon officially reorganize as a not-for-profit public service organization: the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. We've now implemented software and design changes to reflect our new identity.

The eGullet Society now has a new look, expanded features, and a renewed sense of purpose: to increase awareness and knowledge of the arts of cooking, eating, and drinking, and to make further contributions to the literature of food and drink.

This autumn will be the most exciting phase in the three-year history of eGullet: our community is at an inflection point. Starting now and continuing throughout the next couple of months, we'll be rolling out dozens of improvements, changes, and new features, including:

• Our newly designed eGullet Forums, with new software to keep us at the leading edge of online communities
  
• A new eGullet Society portal page, bringing together all of our service offerings in one place
  
• A new ImageGullet image management system that allows unprecedented flexibility to our users for management of uploaded photos and artwork
  
• A revitalized and redesigned webzine, The Daily Gullet, representing the best of eGullet and the world of culinary arts and letters
  
• A new semester of the renowned eGullet Culinary Institute
  
• Q&A sessions with the leading lights of the food and beverage world, including Mimi Sheraton, Pamela Sheldon Johns, and Andrea Sottimano -- and that's just this month
  
• In-depth chronicles of culinary events, such as the opening of chef Grant Achatz's restaurant, Alinea
  
• New discussion forums devoted to books, equipment, food culture and history
  

And there’s much more to come. We hope you’ll continue to help us write the eGullet story, as fellow scribes: friends, members, and supporters.

If you are not currently an eGullet member, we invite you to read along and join the eGullet Society if you so wish. We will not, however, be accepting any new membership applications for the next 2-3 weeks, while we reengineer our webspace and membership application process. When we reopen our membership application system, we will offer the option of a free membership or several levels of supporting memberships with enhanced features such as larger ImageGullet and Personal Messenger allocations.

As we have performed a major technology upgrade and are adding so many new eGullet features in the near future, we ask for your patience and cooperation as our tech team tests, debugs, and modifies. Please visit the eGullet Support & Documentation Center as we add new tech tips, and please use that area for all your support questions. We have assembled a team of knowledgeable eGulleters to answer your questions and brief you on new features.

Thank you for your commitment, past, present, and future.

On behalf of the eGullet team,