What is your favorite cooking magazine?

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I quit buying Gourmet and Bon Appetit because of all the ads and fillers. I just buy the year end compulations also.

I bought Cuisine At Home's "Weeknight Menus", and really like it
That sounds interesting Loprainne. I've never seen it on the shelves but I'll check it out on the internet.

I'm pretty disillusioned with mags right now. The pages of ads and irrelevant articles annoy me. I'll pick one up if the cover intrigues me ---> impulse buyer.:rolleyes:
 
I'm still hanging on to my Bon Appetit subscription - just can't bring myself to give it up.

Love Cuisine at Home and "Weeknight Menus" is a great one to have on hand.

I switch back and forth between professional and non-professional magazines for ideas. And i subsribe to too darn many!!
 
Taste of Home. I have tried some of the other Reiman publications but didn't care for them. The reason I like Taste of Home is so many recipes are submitted by gardeners and the recipes use ingredients I have on hand. I just skip over the ones that include the ubiquitous can of cream of mushroom soup, I find enough good, from scratch, recipes to keep the subscription. And I have recently started buying the annual recipe books on ebay, these cookbooks have one whole year of Taste of Home, and their other publications, in one, indexed book. But I warn you, these cookbooks are heavily bidded on.
 
I like Cook's Illustrated, Cuisine at Home and La Cucina Italiana. I'm not subscribed to any, though, I just pick them up occasionally at the bookstore.

ncage1974 said:
One a side note...has anyone subscribed to Cooks illustrated web site? Is it any good? Did you think it was worth it?

I am subscribed to the CI website, and I find it very worthwhile. I'm very much an Internet person (see my screen name. ;) and I also hate clutter. I don't want years and years worth of magazines sitting around in my house that I have to search through to find what I want. Instead, when I'm looking for something specific, I just go jump on their website and look it up. I use their equipment reviews and taste tests as much or more than their recipes. Or, if I can't find a recipe elsewhere with good user reviews, I'll go to CI next.

My favorite places to get recipes are epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com, because I like reading reviews from others. That's the one thing I don't like about CI's website. I even sent them an email telling them, and they replied that the reason they don't let users review the recipes is because they found that usually people change the recipe, then review it, and it's not really applicable. I can kinda see their point, but I still have had best results from using recipes with good reviews by others, even if they changed it.

Valerie
 
I am a cooking magazine "addict"...I get the majority of the ones listed here, and have for years. My favorite is Saveur,Cuisine At Home, and Southern Living.
 
Cooks Illustrated also has a fantastic full blown cookbook too, it has all of the recipies that they have perfected over the years in the same format as the mag. to boot. It's called "The Best Recipies From Americas Test Kitchen" :clap: Four star recomendation from me.
 
The only thing I don't like about Cook's Illustrated & its ilk (i.e. mags without ads to make them more supposedly consumer-friendly), is that cooking - like many other vocations/hobbies - is very much a personal thing. So frankly, I don't hold much credence to a "test panel"'s suggestions - particularly when it comes to food. Cookware/appliances maybe, but food? No. I might absolutely ADORE a certain condiment, while someone else might hate it with a passion. That doesn't mean either one of us is wrong - it's just personal taste. It's that part of Cook's Illustrated that I dislike - just too many really solid-stated opinions that really don't mean squat, & might steer new cooks from trying different things.
 
I don't subscribe to any right now....
but love Taste of Home.
have picked up Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Saveur (just got about 2 years worth!)and CI at thrift stores.... They had some 20 year old Bon Appetit and Food & Wine mags I passed on, but maybe I should get them?!?

I subscribe to the CI website. I like it. I usually look up their new testings on equipment. My latest lookup was for pressure cookers. I like how they tell you what exactly they didn't like about something. saves a lot of headache.
 
KathyJ - you're so lucky!!! If I were you I'd snap those old copies up in a nanosecond.

Back in the late 70's/early 80's I had an issue of Bon Appetit that had 3 fabulous recipes for holiday tea breads - a banana, an apple, & a cranberry/orange - that made wonderful gifts. I used & cherished that issue until it nearly fell apart. Then after a couple of moves & "house cleanings", it disappeared. Boy, would I love to find a copy of that issue again!!
 
so.... maybe I should go back there and see if they'd give me a deal on them?
they had probably 30-40 of them at $.15/each..... which I guess doesn't amount to that much when you think about it....
I just have so many magazines already that I'm "supposed to be looking through" and pulling out recipes that I didn't want to add to it. I guess I could always go through them at work....

so, should I Breezy???? It's all up to you!!!:cool:

I do like the Saveur I got though. But those were fairly recent, 99-02 years, probably got 20 mags with that.
 
KathyJ-I would get the old magazines. They usually have really yummy things that don't use the current "it" ingredient. (I find that a bit strange, but it seems like some months all magazines are featuring a certain ingredient and I am not referring to in season.)

Right now I subscribe to Everyday Food after buying it quite a few months in a row, but since I subscribed, haven't made a thing in it.
I still have old issues of Gourmet. I use those more often than the newer ones I pick up occasionally at Costco when they look good since they're cheaper there. I get Cooking Light the same way too, but I usually just borrow them from the library and read it and then pull the recipes off the internet of the ones that look good.
The library is my haven! And my friend's house always has a ton of cooking magazines lying around. It gets expensive to buy all the ones you want.
 
I have 20 years of Gourmet and still subscribe, though I don't enjoy it as much as I used to ... it used to have stuff we would occasionally use, and I used to have freinds who'd join me in preparing meals from it together. Now it is mostly nostalgia and hating to stop the collection. I suspect if someone came in and wanted the whole bunch I'd probably stop subscribing. I think I stopped liking it when the recipes and indeces went on the computer. Now I have no excuse to go to the printed indeces, go to the old magazine, and revisit a magazine I read when I was in my 20s, 30s, 40s. I'd reread old articles I loved and maybe find a new-old recipe. Now it is cold. Want the recipe from 1987? Go on the computer, there it is. How fun. (sarcasm there).

I'm enjoying Saveur a lot now.

Cook's Illustrated -- I've found I get all I like out of it on the PBS show. The magazine doesen't seem to have much above and beyond that. I like the comparison shopping, consumer reports-type sections. When it comes to the foods, half the time what they recommend isn't even available where I live, you have to realize they're out of, where?, New England? What they pick up doesn't apply to most of the country. And I get a laugh when they dislike a product I love. I get the feeling the editor (of the mag/host of the show) really doesn't like that many kinds of foods. He strikes me as a fussy-eater kinda guy. But I get a kick out of it, and often get some hints to some dishes I regularly make, and get confirmation that some of the things I've done on my own initiative.

I think a lot of the magazines out now are great for starter cooks, or for that category of home cook I know well right now -- people who have had their children leave home and can now try to fix fish that isn't fish-sticks, etc.
 
I used to subscribe to Bon Appetit and Gourmet but wound up with stacks and stacks of "stuff" that I had no interest in - travel stuff, ads, etc. I think when I went through the first 2-foot high stack and reduced it to recipes - the stack was about 4-inches tall! What really put me off them was then I got an offer to renew for only $1 per issue ... and when I got the bill they were charging me $2.99 per issue for shipping and handling!!! These days, I just browse through them (while standing in the check-out line) and buy an occasional issue if I find something worth the cover price.

I do subscribe to Cuisine at Home for my kid sister (she's 55). Sis has some learning disabilities, gets frustrated very easily when trying something new, and has some coordination problems - so the uncluttered format with plenty of photo illustrations really is ideal for her. I'll go though the issue - take techniques they show - and give her some "easier" things to try using those illustrations as a guide. Instead of a frozen dinner every night she now cooks 3-4 days a week. But, you don't have to have disabilities to get a lot of information and guidance from every issue. I think it's a fantastic way for a new cook to learn some things (recipes, terms, and techniques).

Cook's Illustrated is a funny duck - you either love it for what it is, you hate it because of what it is, or you accept it for what it is and make adjustments. Their cookbooks seem to draw the same responses (criticisms). IMHO their taste panel doesn't always get it right for my preferences - but they have New England tastes and I have Southern/Texan tastes. Some people are really annoyed by the preamble narative of what they tried and didn't work according to them before they get to the recipe (that's the most informative part for me). I have often though that if that bothers you - why not just skip it and go directly to the recipe?

Of course - there are LOTS of cooking mags these days that I've never even looked at! But, with the bounty of recipes on the internet and in cuisine specfic cookbooks at the half-price bookstore (and online) ... I guess I've gotten a little pickier about where I spend my money.
 
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ok - so I went back and got the old issues of Bon Appetit and Food & Wine.... ended up with 62! Guess I'll be busy for a while. :wacko: Most were from late 70's to early 80's. I'll go thru them today at lunch to see what years I have for sure.

Breezy-
were those recipes in the December issue then? I have 1977, 1980, and 1981. Guess they kept the rest. Found 2 banana bread recipes, but no apple or cranberry/orange..... I could check other months....
 
Thanks for asking KathyJ!

I'm not positive, but am fairly sure that was late 70's/early 80's, & probably would have been a fall or early winter issue, as the breads were touted as being great holiday gifts (which they were). The 3 bread recipes were all part of one article, & it was a Bon Appetit.
 
The only consumer food mag I read regularly is Saveur. I love its format, style, photos, variety of articles... the works!

I also don't keep 'em around more than a year. If there's an article I like, I pull it out and file it. I had just TOO much clutter, and it was driving me nuts! :wacko:
 
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I get a bunch of cooking magazines but right now my favorites are
Eating Well
Saveur
 
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