BOOKMARK: Gourmet Today

 

Shockwaves rippled through the culinary universe on October 5, 2009, as word spread that Gourmet magazine, the editorial bastion of fine food and wine for the home chef, would be ending its magnificent sixty-eight-year run. But its spirit lives on: as it happened, editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl, a resident of Columbia County, New York, was on tour to promote Gourmet Today, a massive compendium of recipes, tips, and tricks for the contemporary cook. The thousand-plus-page behemoth updates the original Gourmet Cookbook—the 2006 anthology of the publication’s rigorously tested recipes—according to the fast-evolving palate of the American public.

 

Among the far-ranging recipes and menu suggestions are those that take advantage of farmers’ market finds, sustainable seafood, and exotic ingredients, made even more accessible via a glossary of obscure ingredients and a directory of sources. But most practical are the sidebars scattered throughout—primers on foods including Asian noodles; types of fowl other than chicken/duck/turkey; and the likes of poblano peppers, broccoli rabe, and chayote (a gourd similar to zucchini). Reichl’s decades-long experience as a food critic and editor is a boon to readers: for instance, after adding risotto to a hot pan, she instructs, “Stir until it’s glossy with oil and looks a bit like milk glass.”

 

Guess we’re a Gourmet nation now more than ever. [MAR/APR 2010]

 

THE GOODS

Gourmet Today
Edited by Ruth Reichl
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt