Food for Thought

A week or so ago, Condé Nast announced Gourmet was dead--or at least would breathe its last with its November issue. The news was a surprise to everyone, from its editor-in-chief to little 'ol me, who'd received the mag for two nonsuccessive years as gifts. For all those issues I received, I made one or two recipes. I read maybe half a dozen articles. I kept none of the issues.

Yep, I guess I helped kill the magazine. Not just because I wasn't one of those food enthusiasts who lived and breathed by the publication, but because I'm part of the food blogging movement that some folks claim drove some of the nails in Gourmet's coffin. I'd beg to differ on that second point because I hard ascribe to capture the...cultured, sophisticated, très chic, trop cher aura of food and dining that Gourmet seemed to proffer (at least to me and some other readers and browsers).

My dear Christopher Kimball chimed in on Gourmet's demise in the op-ed pages of The New York Times (lucky him). He too comments on the role (or alleged role) of food bloggers in this murder, but he also has some very astute things to say about how the Internet has given a ready platform for any idiot (that's me!) who things she or he has something to say, with the quality of the content not even considered.

Sorry, that's a bad summary. I'll let my dear Christopher Kimball speak for himself:

The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up. They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers. That leaves, I think, little room for the thoughtful, considered editorial with which Gourmet delighted its readers for almost seven decades.

To survive, those of us who believe that inexperience rarely leads to wisdom need to swim against the tide, better define our brands, prove our worth, ask to be paid for what we do, and refuse to climb aboard this ship of fools, the one where everyone has an equal voice. Google 'broccoli casserole' and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise--the kind that comes from real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind. I like my reporters, my pilots, my pundits, my doctors, my teachers and my cooking instructors to have graduated from the school of hard knocks.

I'd like to think, Gentle Reader, that my culinary misadventures allow me to gain that 'thoughtful expertise' of which he speaks. I'd like to think that by sharing those misadventures with you, I might be inspiring you to think about the way you eat, the way you prepare food (or don't), those experiences that shaped your attitudes about food and its preparation and about how you can royally screw something simple up. Am I doing that? Hell if I know. And to be truthful with you, I don't really care. By writing about my misadventures, I have the opportunity to reflect on the successes, the unmitigated disasters and let those lessons sink in so that the next time I step foot into my kitchen, I'm a little bit more sure of what I'm doing, I'm improving.

Gourmet, I suppose, presented the mastery that comes after many a culinary misadventure. Of course, that mastery also had the good fortune to have at its disposal some very high-end equipment and ingredients--things I'll never have in this lifetime. Just like that mastery.

Ahh well. Good thing I believe in reincarnation.

Happy Diwali, everyone!