All 'bon appetit' Posts on Grub Street - New York Magazine's Daily Food Blog

All Posts Tagged: ‘bon appetit’

In Other Magazines

1/ 2/08

5:15 PM

Food Writers Dwell Happily in the Past This Month

The best stories in this month’s crop of food mags are old. Saveur, which leads the year off with the Saveur 100, runs highlights from the WPA’s unpublished 1937 opus, America Eats, a documentary record of American foodways that is only now seeing the light of day; the images excerpted here are evocative and beautiful and make us eager to see the America Eats book to be published (finally) later this year. Gourmet is devoted to southern cooking, with a wonderful, previously unpublished “What Is Southern?” leadoff essay by the late Edna Lewis, formerly of Café Nicholson. Bon Appétit goes with a “Green Issue” with a long piece by Blue Hill’s Dan Barber on vegetables, an ecofriendly meat guide by sausage guru Bruce Aidells, and a moving essay on a vegetarian who returns to the meat wagon because of sausages. Food & Wine is something of a bore, consisting mostly of lists of “Tastes to Try in 2008,” most of which were short on detail and long on obviousness. (Fiamma has a new chef!) Finally, Food Arts, which won’t come out till later this week, has a major service feature on beef, along with an essay by French Culinary Institute techno whiz Dave Arnold on hydrocolloids, a class of gelatins big in molecular-gastronomy circles.

More: In Other Magazines »bon appetit, food & wine, food arts, gourmet, saveur

NewsFeed

12/ 6/07

4:30 PM

‘Bon Appétit’ Brawl Continues: In Defense of Home Cooking

Photo: Getty Images

Grub Street pal Adam Roberts, known to the world as the Amateur Gourmet, penned a defense of home cooks today, pegged on our recent “incendiary” remarks about Bon Appétit. (Has that phrase ever been written before?) Roberts stands up for the home cook: “You may not find us in the glossy pages of New York Magazine, but you will find us at our kitchen table, laughing with friends, and digging into a slice of homemade apple pie.” Don’t get us wrong: New York is devoted to home cooking, and in fact, we have a pretty sizable recipe database which you can draw from. As far as our position here on Grub Street, though, we think we’re being misunderstood.

More: NewsFeed »amateur gourmet, bon appetit, magazines

Back of the House

12/ 4/07

1:40 PM

Face It, ‘Bon Appétit’: You’re Never Going to Be Hip

The announcement by Bon Appétit that they were going to court younger readers by adjusting its logo was greeted with plenty of amusement earlier today, but the reality is even grimmer than it sounds: Not only is Bon App trying to skew younger, but it’s trying to differentiate itself from other food magazines. The truth is that Bon Appétit will never be any hipper or friskier than it is, because no magazine about upscale entertaining can ever speak to people that don’t have big houses and plenty of time on their hands. Even among such magazines, Bon Appétit is the most boring, an ad-packed Nembutal calling to mind the "women's pages" where newspapers used to publish their party recipes. With the Food Network, the Internet, and a dozen more interesting magazines at their disposal, there's no way we can imagine someone under 40 reading Bon Appétit.

More: Back of the House »bon appetit, food writing

In Other Magazines

10/30/07

9:30 AM

Escaping the Obligatory Turkey Feature

It’s November in the food-magazine business, so expect feature after endless feature about Thanksgiving, and every imaginable variation on recipes for turkey and stuffing. Gourmet gives a pretty complete account, including big Turkey Day features on the fancy version, the Asian version, the Italian version, and even the vegetarian version. Bon Appétit is about the same, taking the big-name approach: Bruce Aidells on turkey, and Michael Lamonaco on potatoes, among others. A profile of Aidells and his meat-minded kitchen is in November's Food & Wine, as well as such year-round delights as domestic cheeses and a new brand of whiskey out of Oregon. Saveur, thankfully, limits itself to a nice article about a West Virginia farm, and then dips in on such disparate topics as kale, heritage chickens, prosciutto from Iowa, and other Saveur-like topics. We’re grateful for the respite; Thanksgiving is early this year but not that early.

More: In Other Magazines »bon appetit, food and wine, michael lamonaco, ouest, saveur, thanksgiving, tom valenti

Foodievents

10/10/07

4:32 PM

Celebrity Chefs Flock to Former Home of Cheesy Celebrity Restaurant

A (highly idealized) view of the room where the demos are to be held. Photo courtesy Bon Appetit

The building that was the Hard Rock Café at 221 West 57th Street, having committed so many affronts to gastronomy over the years, is about to atone, temporarily. Bon Appétit is turning it into a “pop-up supper club and café” where, from October 25 to November 3, a series of celebrity chefs will do demos and book signings during lunchtime. The names should be familiar ones, ranging from TV chefs like Cat Cora and Giada De Laurentiis to established New York stars like Claudia Fleming and Will Goldfarb. Every day, the café area will feature a different signature dish from that day’s chef. Bon Appétit promises affordability, too: All the dishes at lunch will cost $10 or less.

The roster of chefs, and the times they’ll be there, are as follows:

More: Foodievents »bon appetit, cat cora, claudia fleming, giada de laurentiis, govind armstrong, hard rock cafe, michael mina, pichet ong, will goldfarb

In Other Magazines

9/21/07

1:57 PM

‘Gourmet’ Hits El Alto; ‘Bon Appétit’ Hails Chang

As we near the end of the month, it’s time to look at the latest batch of food magazines. Gourmet‘s entire October issue is devoted to Latin American cooking and has two big features that New Yorkers will want to check out: a profile of “El Alto,” the Dominican enclave in upper Manhattan, with a focus on the area’s restaurants, and a mouthwatering survey of taco trucks around the USA.