After close to 70 years in circulation, Gourmet Magazine is slated to cease publication at the end of the year.
Never mind the fact that I’m paid up through the year 2013. I feel I came in late to the game as it is: My subscription kicked in with the November, 2003 issue. I was planning on my own 70 years with it.
My husband and I bought our first house in 2002. I had always tried to be somewhat inventive and adventurous in the kitchen – in my own little somewhat-knowledgeable way. I would find things at the farmer’s market or on sale at the grocery store and figure out what to do with them. I came up with a few of my husband’s favorites along the way, but believe me, not all were winners. Mike has always said that I’m a very intuitive cook. I just like the process of figuring it all out. When I started buying the occasional newsstand copy of Gourmet that year, my eyes opened up to so much more. So did our palates. Mike bought the subscription for me. I’ve never looked back.
Although with Gourmet, you always “look back.” I still have every issue. I still use them over and over again. The Rolodex in my brain still somehow knows where each recipe, spice combination, idea and variation I’ve created is in each back issue. I hoped to line an entire room with my Gourmets over the course of a lifetime. Should I be buried in a mausoleum, I would request in my will that my Gourmets accompany me. You’re never done with them.
In the grand scheme of things, I’ve barely begun. But the memories are there.
During Christmas of 2005, my daughter was fourteen months old, not fully verbal and learning to walk, still holding onto furniture to get around a room. While gripping my living room coffee table, she happened upon the December, 2005 issue of Gourmet, which featured a plethora of cookies on the cover – the December issue always delectably does. She honed in on the black and white cookies, her favorite since solid food, looked up at me, and let out an “Mmmm, Mmmm.” “Oh, yes, they look good,” I said. She looked up at me again, furrowed her brow and let out another set of “Mmmms,” her eyes locked on mine. “Yes, little one, the cookies are good,” I cooed to assuage her.
My daughter was adamant. She let go of the coffee table, held the magazine over her head with the front cover facing me, and let out a loud, guttural final “MMMMMM” before I said, “Alright, alright, we’ll make the black and whites!” Finally satisfied, she put down the magazine, never held a piece of furniture after that, then walked on her own out of the room. And yes, I did make the cookies.
When my April, 2006 issue arrived (“Italian Regional Cooking”), I devoured it, cover to cover. Then I immediately hit my local newsstand to pickup a second issue. I knew the one that came in the mail would become completely spattered with food, pages stuck together and unusable by the end of the month. It was. I like to think I did that issue proud.
And Thanksgiving has never been so “same” in my family since the year my mother put me in charge of the pumpkin pie. I never really eat pumpkin pie. I may pick at the filling, but never touch the crust. I agreed to bring it, saying, “Sure, I’ll do the pumpkin.” I never said the word “pie,” not even once in the weeks leading up when she’d call to double check that I was bringing it.
I made a pumpkin flan from the November, 2005 issue. My mom hollered at me the second she saw it as I walked through the door (I’m in my 40’s). The crowd was skeptical. My cousins tossed a few jokes in, such as “Is what they have in Spain on Thanksgiving?” and the like (Spain, flan, I get it. Hardy har har.) But Holy Mackerel: It was Delicious, with a capital D. The toasted pepitas, a garnish, nearly didn’t make it through the day once my dad and Uncle Vic discovered them! Cheers and cries for encores closed out that holiday evening. A new tradition was born.I’m just not ready to say “Good bye” to Gourmet. Neither is my daughter.
Now five, she pretty much hijacks each issue from my hands after it arrives to select recipes, sometimes from the pictures, sometimes from the voluminous recipe pages. “We should totally make this,” is her favorite come-on.
She has been reading since the age of three – thanks in part, I’m sure, to following recipes together. It makes our adventures in cooking that much easier as she dashes off ingredients, measurements and steps to me. Her little hands are adept at measuring, too, and she can fold even the most delicate ingredients into a soufflé. She does most of the stirring, sifting and counterwork, while I tend to more dangerous areas, like a hot stove or oven.
And it’s not even a matter of using the recipes word for word, ingredient for ingredient. I’ll remember back to a treatment, technique, flavor combination, marinade or the like and translate it to the ingredients we have. Make a recipe once, and it’s yours forever, from new variations on old favorites (braised duck legs with sautéed duck breasts, “Paris on a Budget” September ’08) to attempting a traditional Russian Orthodox Easter dish (Paskha cheese, April ’04) to bring to a family friend’s celebration as a surprise. I’m Italian-Catholic. They were impressed, gracious and flattered that I’d attempt the Paskha, a three-day recipe. I was honored to make it. Thank you, Gourmet.
Even so, I seem always to be on a backlog.
I still haven’t gone through all of the tapas from January ’05. I constantly skim that issue every time I host a dinner – either for an appetizer I’ve made, or for a new one to complement the dinner itself. Heck, my October issue just arrived and I haven’t finished the key recipes on all those dog-eared pages of September.
Sadly, I suppose I’ll have time to catch up on all of them after my last issue comes.
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