well read

I just read about Gourmet magazine; I am at a loss for words at this loss of,well, words, and so very much more.

Gourmet was-- is, it is not gone, yet, afterall...-- not just yet another food-driven magazine. It was not a mag you flip carelessly through while waiting in line at the checkout; though if you did, you put it on that moving belt with your milk and produce to savour properly at home. Such an assumption comes from experience.

Guilty as charged, I am a grocery shopper who purposely seeks out the longest line (even if qualified to zoom through the twelve-or-less-express) so as to while away the wait with a food mag. Bon Appetit and Food and Wine are often available to browse, Saveur less common, sometimes even the food article and recipe section of Oprahs magazine. Once a month though, it is Gourmet, and only once a month because I rarely hustle to stuff it back on the shelf when the annoyed till gal gives me my total like do the others.

Even in that small amount of time, something in Gourmet manages to captivate me: a recipe I simply have to try at home (like the Vanilla Cardamom Pound Cake I had to have last spring, and will, I have a feeling, every spring), a travel story I long to read so as to vicariously experience the trip, and more often than anything, a picture that is so aweing, I want to be able to look at it any time I want.

Each Gourmet magazine is a work of art; this is what I believe sets it apart from other magazines in its genre. The photography is stunning, the detail impeccable, thoughtful, colorful, true to the segment and story, to the food subjected. It is the magazine I am most inspired by for its triage of passion, a recipe created and described, or lived and relived, and then presented in a way that is tender and becoming--it is as wonderful to simply look at as it is to read and cook from.

So apart from its reliability, I will miss the sheer beauty that Gourmet magazine adds to my days of dreaming of and working with food. I thank it for the inspiration it has given, and hope this is not the end.

For the photo that has captivated me now...