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The Kitchen Table

anybody subscribe to a cooking magazine?

18 years ago

Like Rachel Ray, Paula Deen, Bon Appetit, Gourmet etc.? Do you like it or do you have one you would recommend? I would want one that had practical recipes in it (things that you would actually make! ha, ha)

I am thinking my Dad would like something like this for Christmas that he could enjoy all year long.

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Comments (19)

dotmom
18 years ago
I get the "Taste Of Home" magazine, and I like it a lot. Most of the recipes are very practical. Dottie
nodakgal
18 years ago
Taste of Home is a good one. Everyday meals and some special but not funky stuff.
I have often been tempted to buy a cookbook by some of the tv cooks like Rachel Ray and Paula Deen but I don't know which ones are good ones and I'd have to order online.
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My top two for good articles and photos are Fine Gardening and Horticulture. Country Living Gardener has beautiful phoots but often leaves me screaming - poor photo captions and key info often missing (in my opinion, any plant touted in a national gardening magazine should always be id'd with botanic & common name and zone info. I know, I ask a lot!) I gave up on Martha Stewart Living for several reasons, most unrelated to gardening. I would skip the subscription but pick up the annual gardening issue at the newstand - I believe it is the March issue. Brutal personal opinion - Birds & Blooms is targeted at women over 60 who love "cute." Don't mean to offend anyone. (At least Eddie has already weighed in - I would have been worried if he picked this as his fav!) Herb Companion is usually pretty good and a little more offbeat. I haven't read much of Mother Earth News, but if you have funds for several, I would throw one of those two into the mix for a little alternative spice. Eddie mentioned Garden Design - after several years I let this one go. More and more emphasis is being placed on furniture, and every issue features someone who has enough money to hire a gardener who has the time to tie the miscanthus into cute little bundles with raffia. I'm not making up that last part.
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Thought I would share an update.... I made Ruthanna's apple cake with caramel icing to take to our church function. Only change was- I put chopped pecans in the cake, too. Everybody liked it. The icing is RICH! One guy came by and kept raving about how good it was and how much he loved it until I gave him the leftovers.(ok, I saved a piece for me to bring home. Shhh...) Alfred (Hubby) loved it, but said he liked his cake best without icing. I'm going to try LindaC's apple cake with the cake gravy on the side next. Our son loved it, too. He is happy he got his caramel fix. He said it was even better with bottled caramel sauce drizzled over his piece. Yes he did! (I tried a bite. Wasn't bad.) I sneaked in Walmart without son after church today to grab a couple of things on his Christmas list and found a Fine Cooking magazine in my basket at the checkout counter. :) Jude, My best successes have been with the T&T recipes I've found here. My guys will eat anything that doesn't eat them first! Feeding them is the easy part. The hardest part is filling them up for longer than an hour! Especially our son who is 17, 6'2" and is on the track team. Runs off everything he eats and is ALWAYS hungry! Momj47, I MUST read something all of the time! I can't take my laptop everywhere with me, but I NEVER leave home without a book or magazine. A donation would have been nice, but this was a perfect excuse I MEAN opportunity to expand my horizons in the culinary world AND help my Grandson's school. Win/Win. Hubby will be happy if I get a few good recipes from the subscription. See the part above about not filling them up! Thanks again, everyone. Don't know when I've had so much fun buying magazines. Betty
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I will sometimes pick up a food magazine at the store if it looks interesting, and even buy it, but I don't make recipes out of them. I do occasionally make recipes out of Sunset, which always has a food section, but isn't a food magazine. Their recipes are extremely variable, but the ones I've chosen to make because they sounded like good recipes, actually were good. Their layouts also have interesting ideas. Come to think of it, when I was young, my mother gave me a couple of their compilation books and those were pretty good too. I was able to adapt a lot of recipes from the Mexican one, which she sent me while I was living abroad and foodily homesick, to the local ingredients which did not include tortillas (or way to make them at home), lettuce, pinto beans, etc. I like blog recipes. Not all, of course, but I've made or adapted many more recipes I've found on blogs than in magazines, and they've come out much better when they're for something I didn't previously have a clue on. The trick is, first and foremost, a great high speed connection so the photos load right away because I wouldn't be able to just sit there waiting for photo load, either. You can set your browser to skip the pictures, but there's a lot of information in them as you scroll down, so doing that isn't a perfect fix either. Given the connection, however, scroll down to the end where they either have a normally formatted recipe or link to it, or link to "printer friendly version". I often don't read the blog at all, or only go back and skim it when I've decided the recipe looks like what I want to make. Oh, I guess that's something to...I get recipes from blogs mostly when I have something I want to make and go searching for a good recipe. If I don't know what I want to make and just want to read about food, I open a book. :)
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I saved my Gourmet magazines for years and years. Finally, took the plunge and threw out all but a special few. I loved that magazine. I took Bon Appetite for a while - didn't love it the way I did Gourmet. Now, I mainly get new recipe ideas from my online subscription to the NYTimes. I've always liked their recipes - have a few that are more than 40 years old! And I can save them in my own "recipe box" online - no more "stuff" in my shelves or my loose-leaf notebook. I only print one out if I'm actually going to cook it, and with my health issues, that only happens every month or so. But hope springs eternal that someday I may again be able to cook wonderful things again, not just meals that can be prepared in less than 15 minutes.
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msmarion
18 years ago
I like Cooking Light
socks
18 years ago
I like Cooks Illustrated. They explain a lot of why a recipe is cooked a certain way, and they also test and rate cooking tools (cutting boards, blenders, etc.) I'll have to admit, it's the only cooking magazine I've ever subscribed to. It has no ads and so may be a little more expensive than others.
lynn_d
18 years ago
Another Cooks Illustrated gal here, love that magazine and the only one I get as well, Socks. I just got another in the mail. country home something, it had some good recipes in the sample they sent.
anettemartinrn
18 years ago
subscribe him to the free Taste of Home (?) cooking magazine from Kraft. you can find it on the kraft.com website.

anette

...in addition of course to any other you might want to buy for him...
gwanny2three
18 years ago
Taste of home here too....really good easy recipes. I just cancelled cooking light. I like Taste of Home alot though.
patches_02
18 years ago
Taste of home cooking for 2 really like this one.
patti43
18 years ago
We get Cooking For 2, Paula Deen and Southern Living (great recipes in that one).
roseluver
18 years ago
My favorite is also Cook's Illustrated. Sign your dad up for the free magazine from Kraft called Food and Family. You can get it at: kraftfoods.com/share
Simple easy recipes with step by step illustrations. It is published quarterly. Charlene
socks
18 years ago
There's another good one which I think Lynn was referring to called Cook's Country. I think it is delivered on the off-months from Cooks Illustrated, which is nice.

About the Kraft foods publications and e-mail--Do they bombard you with e-mail and trade off your e-mail address to others? I often hesitate to sign up for things because of this problem.
jannie
18 years ago
Another Taste of Home reader here. They also publish "Simply Delicious" Magazine.
patti43
18 years ago
I forgot about Kraft's Food and Family. I can't believe it's free. Beautiful pictures and really simple recipes.
kickypants
18 years ago
I have been subscribing to "Canadian Living" magazine for many years. Every single recipe seems to work out...I totally trust them. It's not only recipes though...a bit of everything.
roseluver
18 years ago
Socks, I have never had a problem from subscribing on line to Krafts food.
ont_gal
18 years ago
I never have had a problem with Kraft either, and I just love that mag

the mag is free....go to the Kraft website to check it out
vannie
18 years ago
Socks, no problem here w/ the Kraft magazine. It's really good and is free. You can't get much better than that!!
sienne_c
18 years ago
I subscribe to most of them -- Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Saveur, Food & Wine. I stopped subscribing to Cook's Illustrated and a few others (food/cooking geek, what can I say).

The question I'd ask is how accomplished in the kitchen is your father and do you want a magazine that just focuses on the food? The difficulty range will run the gamut in Gourmet but they also have great travel articles, although the travel tends to be on the pricey side. F & W will have more articles on wine and spirits. As far as cooking, I'd suggest going to the websites for these magazines and picking something your dad likes and comparing the recipes. It will give you a sense of the complexity of the recipes as well as photos, etc.
Cherryfizz
18 years ago
I love the Fine Cooking magazine. I save all my copies and when I want a recipe I just have to look at the spine of the magazine as they are stacked.

The recipes are so easy and they show you step by step how to make it and with pictures too. Even my brother Paul uses them when he doesn't know how to cook something.

There offer a tips and techniques section submitted by readers. Product comparisions (which is the best to buy).

Why don't you buy your Dad 1 copy of each cooking magazine and then let him choose which one he would like as a gift subscription?

Fine Cooking is my favourite of all the cooking magazines out there and my "go to" magazine when I am wanting ideas on how to prepare a certain dish or veggie.

Anne

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