jh020271 wrote:To the previous response, i apologize if my comment confused you, but i can not list the name of the company i work with, but i can assure you i am looking into the problem personally (as Saveur is my customer) i do not however work for them i work for the company that prints this title. We are showing by our records that all issues went out to the proper address's but something happened along the way with the post office, as you know the chicagoland BMC (Bulk Mail Center's) are the worst in the nation and are being revamped, as far as the publisher sending out old issue's......this is something that is done very rarely, as the process is VERY expensive, both reprinting, binding, and mailing. I will say that if it wasn't for this blog, this issue never would have been raised to my company, i kid you not but this blog is what was emailed to me on my work email from CORPORATE, so someone must have been reading this blog. I hope this issue does not happen again, but i can say keep blogging, its reaching more people then you realize!!

Yep, Chicago's postal service IS the worst I've ever had the misfortune to experience.

what the--- I never got that pasta issue either! I didn't even realize it! Thanks, gang - time to call and complain!

Finally got both the pasta and the crab issues last week.

i still hadn't received the replacement copy of the pasta issue promised to me several weeks ago. so, i was happy to see some copies at the NRA show yesterday. the astute woman selling subscriptions had heard about the chicago bruhaha (sp?) over the missing issues. and after the first day of the show she had scrounged up a few copies of the pasta issue. after minimal begging and pleading, she gave me one. she had been told that the printer was at fault, printing a short run. whether that is true or not, customer service needs to be better informed and consistent when speaking to its customers. justjoan

I assure you this was not a printer issue, we don't "RUN SHORT" we can't ship a title till the entire quantity the customer is calling for has been printed. So your source is incorrect, this is a USPS issue. Even the Saveur has recognized this.

justjoan wrote:i still hadn't received the replacement copy of the pasta issue promised to me several weeks ago. so, i was happy to see some copies at the NRA show yesterday. the astute woman selling subscriptions had heard about the chicago bruhaha (sp?) over the missing issues. and after the first day of the show she had scrounged up a few copies of the pasta issue. after minimal begging and pleading, she gave me one. she had been told that the printer was at fault, printing a short run. whether that is true or not, customer service needs to be better informed and consistent when speaking to its customers. justjoan

I talked to the same woman at the NRA show today who said that the pasta issue was short-printed, although she works for KAS Associates (a wholesale magazine reseller in Gurnee), not Saveur magazine. I picked up a copy of the pasta issue and extended my subscription for 3 years for $45.

Why would one "short print" an issue? ...especially one with wide appeal(and competitive appeal---Gourmet put out a similar issue that month). Now...I would definitely endorse Food 'n Wine, etc. short printing those godawful travel/lifestyle/Colorado "top" chefs' weekends issues... total airline fodder

Christopher Gordon wrote:Why would one "short print" an issue?

It's not on purpose. As someone who has worked on several sides of printing and publishing, I can tell you that what usually happens is some kind of printing problem. Press malfunction, paper or ink shortage, folding and binding problems -- any of these can cause a printing order to fall short. Sometimes errors aren't discovered until well after printing, so you have, say, 100,000 copies of a publication of which 10,000 are bad and it's determined not to be cost-effective to go back and reprint the missing 10 percent.

In rare cases, it is an editorial problem -- a missed deadline can cause a publication to lose its slot in the printer's schedule and they print a partial order, or, very rarely, sometimes an error appears after part of an issue is printed that's so egregious that the publisher pulls the rest, as with the Trib's notorious W section.

Fujisan wrote:

justjoan wrote:i still hadn't received the replacement copy of the pasta issue promised to me several weeks ago. so, i was happy to see some copies at the NRA show yesterday. the astute woman selling subscriptions had heard about the chicago bruhaha (sp?) over the missing issues. and after the first day of the show she had scrounged up a few copies of the pasta issue. after minimal begging and pleading, she gave me one. she had been told that the printer was at fault, printing a short run. whether that is true or not, customer service needs to be better informed and consistent when speaking to its customers. justjoan

I talked to the same woman at the NRA show today who said that the pasta issue was short-printed, although she works for KAS Associates (a wholesale magazine reseller in Gurnee), not Saveur magazine. I picked up a copy of the pasta issue and extended my subscription for 3 years for $45.

I talked to a woman (not sure she's the same) manning the booth on Saturday, and raised this issue (ho!), and she hadn't heard that it was a problem, but I am impressed that KAS took action to satisfy at least a few customers.

Miraculously (at least it feels that way to me) I received my June-July issue of Saveur yesterday. I am wondering if other Chicagoans also have gotten theirs. I never received either of the back issues that I was promised (pasta/crab), but was able to buy the crab issue in the store so I only missed one. Did anyone ever get a promised back issue??

i received the current (fried chicken) issue yesterday. (yay). and i picked up the pasta issue at the NRA show, which was lucky for me, as the promised replacement copy for my missing issue never arrived. saveur better get its act together and start treating its customers right or speaking for myself, i won't be renewing when my subscription lapses. at the very least, if there are issues with missing issues, their customer service people need to speak with one voice, instead of contradicting themselves repeatedly. justjoan

I have now received the aforementioned mini Italian cookbooks along with the "classic pasta" "crab" and today the "fried chicken" issue, all in the past week.

I never did make a call so maybe Saveur is sending all Chicago area residents issues they may not have gotten.

Did anyone notice where the fried chicken on the cover is from?

As far as I'm concerned, that's LTHForum's second Saveur cover.

BTW, Klas also gets a nice mention in the same article.

Mike G wrote:Did anyone notice where the fried chicken on the cover is from?

As far as I'm concerned, that's LTHForum's second Saveur cover.

BTW, Klas also gets a nice mention in the same article.

I had alerted JiminLoganSquare on this delightful news a few days ago. I think it is spectacular! Jim's only disappointment? They didn't offer the biscuit recipe.

Regards,

So today I got a manila envelope and along the address label was handwritten "Sav April 2008". My pasta back issue! Finally! But my excitement was short lived as I opened the envelope to discover not the April issue, but the current June/July which I had already received. Called customer service, again, and was told they are now 'permanently' out of April 2008. Oh well.

Try calling again. There's a reasonable likelihood you'll get a different answer.

Just checking to see if people have gotten their Watermelon issue (September). I saw it in a store today but haven't gotten it at home. Do we have another Chicago post office problem??

mine arrived by mail wednesday- i'm in chicago. jj

Mine also arrived Wednesday or Thursday. Forest Park. And boy, did it make me hungry for watermelon! Looks like some pretty spectacular brownie recipes too (espresso brownies with chocolate covered coffee beans in them?!)

I got the watermelon issue, but never did end up getting the pasta issue. I tried the supernatural brownie recipe and it was fantastic.

Binko wrote:I got the watermelon issue, but never did end up getting the pasta issue. I tried the supernatural brownie recipe and it was fantastic.

Same here (well, not the brownie part).