food magazine invasion!

After reading the thread about how to categorize cook books--I was wondering what our friends think about magazines. I have Cooks and Saveur's and some Gourmet's all the way back to the early 90's and I don't look at them often--don't have a method for accessing them (although, now online you can look up a recipe and be directed to an issue date). How long do you guys keep mags--or do you read and pitch? read and cut and file? I live in too small an apartment for all of this printed matter! I am also trying to decide how to keep written recipes in a more organized fashion....any advice gratefully appreciated!

Hi Nancy--

I have the same problem with my collection of 15 years of Fine Cooking magazines and 10 years worth of Gourmet, which are in the attic. GIven that many magazines are publishing online indices, I end up searching online and then going to the hard copy if necessary. Almost all Gourmet recipes are at epicurious.com for free. Fine Cooking has a subscription-based website with almost all their recipes; I find it very worth the money (about $10 per year). Then I just keep the paper magazines for reading in bed. Somehow it's not so satisfying to snuggle up with a website.

Cheers, Jen

nancy-

Great topic because I fall in the same boat. I have 7 or so years of Bon Appetit from when it was a better magazine. I have the magazines in holders on a shelf and will pull an issue when the website references a particular month/year. Recipes from the newspaper are more problematic. I have a basket full of clipped recipes. I started an organization project years ago that fizzled so they remain in the basket. I did make a "cookbook" using a photo album but found that I hadn't tested a lot of the recipes so it's less useful as a resouce than I wanted. I look forward to hearing other ideas.

The GP wrote: I have a basket full of clipped recipes.

I force myself to clip interesting recipes from my magazines and then toss the magazines before the new issue arrives. The clippings sit in a folder until I have 20 or so - then I gather them, spray the backs with a little bit of Spray Mount™ (available at any craft store), and mount them on just regular 8.5 X 11 recycled paper from the office. Then they go into manilla folders by "category" - eggs, sides, rubs, sauces, lamb, etc. that invariably get broken into sub folders (chx thighs, whole chx, etc.)

Works fine for me, and the folders give me a nice place to keep notes on recipes, often for specific holidays (Easter, Thanksgiving, etc) which I update fairly religiously after the meal is finished (this sometimes, but not always, gets me out of doing dishes). The fact that all the irregular-shaped recipes are on 8.5 X 11 scrap make them neat and uniformly manageable in the folders, and my Mom and Grandmother's favorites on those 3 X 5 cards adhere just fine too.

I just don't have the space to stash old magazines, and I'm not going to Aruba in the near future, so all the "travel" stuff isn't exactly applicable to me at this time. I like web-based recipe searches just fine for new or specific things - but most of those that I like get printed and - you guessed it - filed in its proper folder.

Doesn't help with the old magazines, but I use the heck out of the Epicurious recipe-box feature and don't feel the need to keep the magazines, although I still enjoy them. I need to find a system for Saveur and Food and Wine.

I hear you, Nancy!

I agree with everyone else's feedback on this, using Epicurious is much simpler than trying to store/access your back issues. The last time I moved, I gave away all of my cooking magazines, including nearly 10 years of Cooks and just signed up for the online membership. Cook's online gives you access to all past issues/recipes, much easier. If I really like a recipe and refer to it often, I download it and save it on my computer.

It took several years to work up the nerve to do it...but I just threw away years of old cooking magazine. I'm loving the additional space!

In an effort to cut down on clutter, one rainy day I sat down at the computer with my stack of clipped recipes and bookmarks to my favorite cooking magazines' websites. I found almost every clipped recipe online, and I've saved them all as Word documents. Each document is named like this:

Type of dish (salad, appetizer, soup, entree, dessert, etc.) and/or Main ingredient, Name of dish, Name of Source

For example:
Bread, No-Knead (NYTs).doc
Bread, No-Knead (Cooks Illustrated).doc
Salad, Fingerling Potato Salad with Gremolata Dressing (Cooking Light).doc
Pasta, Farfalle with Cherry Tomatoes, Arugula, and Goat Cheese (Cooks Illustrated).docx
Chicken, Moroccan with Olives and Lemon (Cooks Illustrated).docx

Before you throw away old cooking magazines, check ebay to see if they are worth anything. Early issues of Fine Cooking actually have some value and this may be true for other magazines (I suspect Saveur, for example, may be collectible). Looking on ebay, I see older FC issues offered for sale, but no bids. So maybe not!

Jen

I got tired of going back through old issues looking for recipes. I could go online and probably find them, but that seemed like too much trouble, so I have another solution.

I save all my old magazines, since I have a huge library. I also like to keep magazines in good shape, and using one as a cookbook gets it greasy fast!

When each new issue comes, I just scan any interesting recipes into my computer as picture files. Then when I get around to trying one, I just print it out. If it gets dirty, I toss it. If it doesn't, I give it away to someone who liked the dinner!

Here's my m.o.:

I've got about 20 years of Gourmet back issues (ending around 2000). Every month I go to the back of my closet, wipe away the cobwebs, and search for a similar month from the back issues (this month it was May 1989). I then read through the recipes, obligate myself to prepare at least one new recipe, clip out those that look promising, discard the magazine, and keep the recipe(s) that work out well in a loose-leaf folder, indexed loosely by subject. It's the kind of obsessive behavior that drives my wife crazy, so, you can see, it serves a variety of purposes.

jbw wrote:... obligate myself to prepare at least one new recipe,...

This is absolutely what I need to do. Otherwise I just skim for 'inspiration' and we end up eating the same 5 or so dishes in rotation again and again. I should make Fridays New Dish Night-- maybe I can get the kiddo to play along-- she could pick the dish... thinking....

Thanks for the inspiration jbw! However, I'm still not shredding the mags. I love the writing in the old Gourmets-- Laurie Colwin anyone?

Cheers, Jen

Taking this in a slightly different direction - do people thing that Gourmet is a worthwhile magazine to subscribe to? I got an offer in the mail for a $13 subscription that I can't quite throw away. I've paged through a few issues over the years, but not for a while. What's their whole deal, anyway? Is that "Diary of a Foodie" representative of the Gourmet ethos? The only other cooking magazine I get is Cooks Illustrated, which I love to page through, although I probably actually attempt less than 10% of what's in there.

I know someone would tell me to go pick up an issue, but that'd probably cost me 40% of the subscription rate, and then my margins would be blown. Any thoughts?

I haven't read Gourmet in some 10+ years. I was a subscriber and finally called it quits because of the insane number of ads and the movement towards being a lifestyle magazine, rather than a magazine focused on food and cooking. Perhaps it's different now. But if you like Cooks Illustrated, I'd caution that Gourmet is a very different magazine. Then again, for $13, it might be better to just try it for a year.

One last thing to ad: even though $13 is very cheap, whenever I order a magazine, I call customer service and ask what the lowest subscription rate is. I'm shocked at the number of conversations I have that go like this:

Me: I'm calling about a subscription to Glossy Magazine. What's the subscription rate?
Sales Rep: That would be $29 for a year.
Me: I received an ad in the mail that says the rate is $19 for a year.
Sales Rep: Ok, if you'll give me the coupon code on the ad, I can enter that for you.
Me: Sure, the code is 123. Is this the lowest available rate?
Sales Rep: Let me check....well, no, I can also sign you up for $9 for a year. Would you like to do that?
Me: No, I think I'll take the $19 per year rate.

Ok, the last line was a joke. And sometimes you've got to jump through a hoop to get that lowest rate, like pay with a credit card and agree that in one year you will be automatically renewed (and you can cancel that renewal without penalty). In any case, it's worth calling before you subscribe.

I still subscribe to Gourmet (I think somebody who gave me a subscription as a gift continues to renew it for me) and I'd say it's OK - but I'm enjoying Saveur considerably more lately for the abovementioned reasons. I find the ads-disguised-as-articles that cover several pages to be incredibly annoying. However, you can look at Gourmet's website and that might give you an idea of the quality of the actual articles therein.

Darren72 wrote:I haven't read Gourmet in some 10+ years. I was a subscriber and finally called it quits because of the insane number of ads and the movement towards being a lifestyle magazine, rather than a magazine focused on food and cooking. Perhaps it's different now. But if you like Cooks Illustrated, I'd caution that Gourmet is a very different magazine. Then again, for $13, it might be better to just try it for a year.

I gave up Gourmet for the same reasons as Darren. My go-to food magazine for the past 15 years has been Fine Cooking-- they do a great job at focusing on the cooking and not the lifestyle crap. Or at least they used to-- they have just gone through a big redesign and added more glossy photos. Also, over the years they have had less and less ethnic cuisine and more and more "suburban cuisine"-- permutations on pasta with grilled vegetables, etc. I'm thinking about Saveur too.

Jen

I like Fine Cooking as well - but I typically pick it up at a newsstand when I find it, haven't subscribed yet.

just a reminder...check ebay before purchasing a saveur subscription. there are always deals. today, for example you could get one year for either $4.50 or $6.50 and 4 years for $18. all deals. justjoan

justjoan wrote:just a reminder...check ebay before purchasing a saveur subscription. there are always deals. today, for example you could get one year for either $4.50 or $6.50 and 4 years for $18. all deals. justjoan

Okay, I got the $6.50 for one year of Saveur from cheapsubscriptions.com. My subscription should start in 8-12 weeks; I will let you know if it works out. Thanks for the tip! I was really getting annoyed at Fine Cooking-- they should call it "Fine Pasta". As Barbara Kafka once wrote in Gourmet, Basta (enough) Pasta! Saveur should prove a fine complement to FC.

Jen

JenM wrote:

justjoan wrote:just a reminder...check ebay before purchasing a saveur subscription. there are always deals. today, for example you could get one year for either $4.50 or $6.50 and 4 years for $18. all deals. justjoan

Okay, I got the $6.50 for one year of Saveur from cheapsubscriptions.com. My subscription should start in 8-12 weeks; I will let you know if it works out. Thanks for the tip! I was really getting annoyed at Fine Cooking-- they should call it "Fine Pasta". As Barbara Kafka once wrote in Gourmet, Basta (enough) Pasta! Saveur should prove a fine complement to FC.

Jen

I have gone this route of cheap subscriptions. One small caveat, I never got information that my subscription was ending. You need to track this yourself under these conditions.

Regards,

Thanks to everyone for the input. I'm going to pass on this one, but I'll keep this in mind if I get an offer from Saveur.

justjoan wrote:just a reminder...check ebay before purchasing a saveur subscription. there are always deals. today, for example you could get one year for either $4.50 or $6.50 and 4 years for $18. all deals. justjoan

I tried Ebay once for Saveur, and waited several months for the subscription to start as others here indicated. I never got any issues and when I went to Ebay, the seller was gone, the auction listing was gone, and so was my money. It was too late to file any kind of complaint. So if you do go to Ebay, I'd recommend that you file a complaint before the time limit expires if you haven't received anything. Don't wait like I did.

I only have two food magazine subscriptions, but they quickly took over. I abhor hoarding and I'm a compulsive purger when it comes to clutter, so these really bother me.

My two solutions:

For Cook's Illustrated: I canceled the magazine and replaced it with an online subscription that includes their full searchable recipe archive and the text of every issue. I gave all the magazines away to my sister.

For Saveur: I'm undertaking a long-term digital scanning project. There are probably about 3-5 recipes I really care about in each issue. They're getting clipped, scanned, and indexed digitally.

Best,
Michael

imsscott wrote:

justjoan wrote:just a reminder...check ebay before purchasing a saveur subscription. there are always deals. today, for example you could get one year for either $4.50 or $6.50 and 4 years for $18. all deals. justjoan

I tried Ebay once for Saveur, and waited several months for the subscription to start as others here indicated. I never got any issues and when I went to Ebay, the seller was gone, the auction listing was gone, and so was my money. It was too late to file any kind of complaint. So if you do go to Ebay, I'd recommend that you file a complaint before the time limit expires if you haven't received anything. Don't wait like I did.

I had the same experience the one time I tried eBay for magazine subscriptions...my New Yorker never showed, but wouldn't you know it, the Us Weekly I got for my wife started arriving ahead of schedule.

Now I gladly pay the higher rate to buy subscriptions from Amazon.com...at least I know they're not a fly-by-night outfit, like some eBay sellers.

i'm sorry and surprised to hear some of you have had trouble with ebay. my subs have all shown up. mine have always been renewals and have segued properly. justjoan

JenM wrote:

justjoan wrote:just a reminder...check ebay before purchasing a saveur subscription. there are always deals. today, for example you could get one year for either $4.50 or $6.50 and 4 years for $18. all deals. justjoan

Okay, I got the $6.50 for one year of Saveur from cheapsubscriptions.com....
Jen

I just got my first issue of Saveur today, so it appears that cheapsubscriptions can indeed deliver. On first leaf-through, it looks like the cover story (The Burger Bible) should be a great help to my eat-more-veg-and-maybe-finally-lose-some-weight diet.
Saveur looks like a great addition to my magazines-- I am getting tired of Fine Cooking's focus on Suburban Connecticut cuisine (pasta, grilled meat, pasta, fresh veg, pasta).

Cathy, thanks for the tip on keeping track of when the subscription runs out.

Cheers, Jen

I love cooking magazines--the best kind of magazines IMO. The only one I get currently is Cooking Light which recently underwent a major overhaul. The issue I got this week was the first one since the makeover and I'm not convinced yet. It looks like they're focusing more on semi-homemade stuff. Anyone else a subscriber? I'd like to know what others think of the changes.

I also read Fine Cooking for the first time and thought it was iffy. I agree there's too much same-old same-old with pasta but there's a fantastic article about ice cream making that I can't wait to try.

I too used to get Cook's Illustrated, now I just stick to the online version.

I absolutely despise Gourmet, it's a lifestyle magazine for the wealthy or want-to-be wealthy more than anything. I think I've cooked all of one recipe from there during the five years I got it (A one year gift subscription that never canceled ) and it wasn't any big hit.

I never really had any beef with Bon Appetit, it seems less of a lifestyle mag than Gourmet, but I haven't seen it in a while so I really shouldn't speak on it. Also, I've tried a number of Real Simple recipes, and while it's not a cooking magazine, I've found the recipes in there to be quite good.

I guess I sound pretty critical, but I really do love flipping through them in bed.