Gourmet, RIP

Yesterday, Condé Nast announced that it was going to stop publishing Gourmet. What a terrible thing to do! Beth has enjoyed Gourmet for thirty years, and we have nearly all the issues for that entire period. There have been some ways in which it declined over time, gaining an obsession with elite lifestyle porn and decreasing the proportion of recipes every year, but it still was a way for Beth to experiment with novel dishes and feel as though she were, vicariously, a "foodie." I'll miss the writings of Jane and Michael Stern, writers obsessed with sussing out every greasy spoon, barbecue joint, fried chicken parlor, and hot dog stand in America and weighing in on their merits. (Their columns inspired me to create a family of characters in one of my unpublished stories whose love of no-good greasy food becomes a transcendent artform and way of life.) Gourmet had almost a million subscribers. Condé Nast expects to transition them over to Bon Appetit, a truly crappy middle-of-the-road lowbrow rag. As for me, I bought Beth a ten-year subscription to Gourmet as a wedding present. Condé Nast has had the decency to promise me a refund on the unmailed issues.

I blame Condé Nast for not seeing beyond the short-term dip in Gourmet's ad pages that every magazine has felt in this recession. What are they going to cut next? The New Yorker? Why not just wipe out every vestige of culture and good taste?

That last is a serious question. I feel like a dinosaur. A lot of things I grew up with, things that provided joy and flavor in life, are disappearing -- classical music, good journalism, and worthwhile television, to name but three. Am I really that old?