The death of my friend Gourmet.

To date I've written tributes only about friends and acquaintances who have recently died so it may appear strange to write about the death of a magazine.  But Gourmet was different.  It was a tradition, a force and one of the few periodicals that carried me through my year in Viet Nam.

Gourmet's life was almost as long as mine and I can recall intersecting with its articles throughout my career; on our honeymoon in St Martin, for instance, Bud Vass, elegant hotelier, prided himself on cooking exclusively from Gourmet and it was some food.  Colette, too, cooked from its many books and we used articles to guide us on foreign trips.

Sure it went through some hard times and years and I dropped it before Ruth Reichl's return convinced me she could turn it around.  The addition of Alexander Lobrano as Paris/French/European correspondent six years ago was inspired.

But the combination of Conde Nast's bean counters and McKinsey's pall-bearers finally did it in.  Its demise is not only a disaster for the many fine people who write for and edit it, it's sad for we its readers and I fear one more sign of the dumbing down of the print press.

Comments

[John Whiting]

For those with short memories -- whether from youth or from fading mental powers -- Ruth Reichl's anthology covering 65 years of Gourmet's publication reveals just how much we have lost. It's a sad fact that intelligent writing about food is increasingly reliant on people such as you who don't have to satisfy greedy, illiterate publishers. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Gourmet-Sixty-five-Favorite-Recipes/dp/1400066387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255678247&sr=1-1

[johntalbott]

It's sad as well that the November issue (her and their last) was "in the can" and thus even her last editorial is business as usual not Adieu!