What’s even worse than Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of Bon Appétit?

Here I go again with inflammatory post titles. But I just had to add a note or two to my last post about the new Bon Appétit. Before I answer that question – one last thing about Gwynnie -

I’m really trying not to be a GP hater just because she’s perfect. (And, actually, we know she’s NOT perfect, since her bones, although shapely, are brittle.) But let’s be honest – she’s an excellent actress, she’s beautiful (really, we can’t hold that against her), she seems to have a lovely family even if her children are somewhat oddly-named, AND, for whatever reason, there are lots of folks who want to know what she thinks about stuff – whether its diet, exercise or what handbag to buy.

I certainly don’t need to follow her world view (whatever that is) to get on with my life, but I choose more to ignore her than vilify her. In the case of her mug on the cover of Bon Appétit, it’s Bon Appétit who should be criticized. It’s as simple as this. We don’t want no celebrities on the cover. We want food, glorious food.

But there’s something that exasperates me even more than a non-food item on the cover. I’ve noticed this with House Beautiful too and I will not be renewing my subscription because of it, which I only got in the first place as a bonus to the FN Magazine and because Ina’s recipes were featured each month.

So what is the thing that gets me (really mad) about the new Bon Appétit?

When they put a headline on the cover (in that lackluster lettering and design that I spoke of before) AND there’s no page number with it and the table of contents doesn’t list anything resembling that story on the inside.

Here’s an example on Gwynnie’s cover:

“The Crispiest Chicken Ever!” Yeah! I want to know how to do that, especially since I just came back from the south. Tell me!

I go inside and read the ENTIRE table of contents, BOTH PAGES, THREE TIMES!!! Nothing! Then I think, okay, what story COULD it be in?

How about “Let’s take it outside!” about summer cooking? Nope, there’s something about embracing laziness and a picture with lots of kids.

How about in the Father’s Day feature? The table of contents just says there’s a dish that “looms large” in the author’s memory. Maybe the recipe is hiding there. NO! That’s about PORK CHOPS...with more pictures of kids.

OMG! This is getting annoying. The Seasonal Cook? No, that’s a strawberry story.

The Challenge? Nope, sriracha.

OH! Maybe HERE. The Party. No, no, no. That’s about grilled friggin’ lamb. This is seriously ridiculous.

WAIT! I’m SO dumb. I’ll check the recipe index in the back. Gosh, the print is small.

Let me get my glasses. Not good enough. Hold on! I need my magnifying glass.

Gosh, I really can’t make anything out. I have to call my next door 12 year old neighbor, Tommy, to come and read this for me. Tell me, Tommy! Is there a recipe for fried chicken in the index?!!

Chicken salad. That’s definitely not it.

Grilled chicken with PEACH barbecue sauce? Let’s look at that. Can you make out the page number? Oh, it’s a Gwynnie recipe and she’s using boneless, SKINLESS chicken breasts (of course, she is), so it’s not that.

The last chicken recipe, according to Tommy is “perfect pan roasted chicken thighs”. That really CANNOT be what they’re talking about, could it?!!

They say to cook it in a cast iron pan skin side down. (That’s revolutionary. NOT!) and the skin gets as crisp as bacon. You have to be kidding me!!!

They tout the crispest chicken in the universe on the cover and then they stick it a Fast, Easy Fresh feature which, in the table of contents, they describe as “Simple summer recipes from the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen”.

I thanked Tommy and tried to get him out of the house as quickly as possible, before I bedamned and blasphemed Bon Appétit‘s name.

Here is my message to Adam Rapoport:

Skip the celebs on the cover and concentrate on designing a cover that tells the reader WHERE the stories are.

Page numbers would help and the actual words in the table of contents that MATCH the cover would be an obvious solution. In fact, I know a 12 year old with enough common sense to organize that for you really easily and he wouldn’t even need supersonic reading glasses to do it.

Do You Like The New Bon Appétit Cover With Gwyneth Paltrow On It?

Frankly, I'm just trying to stir up trouble. I don't mind Gwynnie...that much. She’s a decent cook and, apparently, enough people think her recipes are good enough to put her on the The New York Times Best Seller list for 6 weeks.

Plus I don’t think it's fair to hate her just because there doesn't seem to be an area of life at which she doesn't excel. But do I want her mug on the cover of the 2nd new Adam Rapoport-edited Bon Appétit? No, not particularly.

They could put her FOOD on the cover if they wanted to, and have a few shots of her in her kitchen on the inside. But I don’t need to reminded of her perfection (not that there’s anything wrong with being perfect – not that I would know) on the cover. Also look at the portion size of her spaghetti and meatballs. 

That’s just plain annoying. AND those look like cherry tomatoes, not meatballs, in that midget-sized portion of pasta. (Oh, they actually are cherry tomatoes.)

Anyway, this is all just an aside to a discussion of the new Bon Appétit magazine. My buddy Tom wondered how I liked it.

First I have to say (and I'm finding this more and more) that I hate change. Don't you feel sometimes that NOTHING, which is supposedly improved, is ever as good as it was before? I’m really trying to think of something that's better and I can't. 

My old original Oster blender worked so much better than the three I've had since then. My original Robot Coupe food processor was the best I ever had until I had to get a new one, because I was moving to America and the plug didn’t fit. Raspberry Dannon yogurt has NEVER been as good as it was 20 years ago (not to mention being downsized in amount and upsized in price).

Totally new inventions are okay - my wireless mouse is better than my corded one and I guess flavored vodkas beat the plain ones every time and Twitter is cool. But when old things change, they often seem disappointing.

Now that I'm totally depressed, let's get on with it. So how do Bon Appétit fans feel about the new Bon Appétit? Do you like it as much as the old one? Or maybe you haven’t even noticed a difference…

The first issue looked suspiciously like something else I've had in my kitchen for a while now. It had the look of...sorry to say...The Food Network Magazine. That's not really fair, because I actually LIKE the FN Magazine, except for the feature about "cooking" from packaged, processed ingredients - like how can we make the best thing from a boxed angel food mix or whatever...(The best thing you can do with THAT is to leave it on the shelf!)

Anyway, the new Bon Appétit has perky new graphics and lots of white space on the cover. I actually had a marketing expert look at two covers - one old and one new.

 

He had a surprisingly strong reaction. He HATED the new cover (on the right). He said it was boring and unoriginal and it didn’t do the job of stimulating interest in what was on the inside of the magazine. He said the old cover took your eye from the upper left down to the lower right in a more organic way. And it peaked your curiosity.

Gosh! All I would have said was that the new cover looked a bit leaner, but I get what he meant. I guess it's Bon Appétit trying to be more Google than Yahoo, visually. (I AM the last person on the planet to use Yahoo, so you know I prefer a bit of clutter.) 

Also, THIS is weird. Here’s the first new cover again and then the next month’s with Gwynnie.

  

The size of the font is completely different. I know one is “The Italy Issue”, but why have the font so much smaller than the one with Gwyneth? If they’re trying to get me to adjust to a new style, then they shouldn’t change it in the second month!

The table of contents is kind of annoying, also. It’s in skinny letters against the background of a dramatic food picture, which makes it difficult to read. Arrgghh! 

But what about the nitty gritty of the magazine? The content.  

There seems to be a few more numbered lists – 30 Reasons We Like Italy; Top Ten Places Chefs Like To Go In Copenhagen. Those are better than the pull-out list in the latest FN Magazine of 50 Condiments. There ARE some good ideas in there, but mayonnaise with Old Bay seasoning is not one of them.

What I have always loved about Bon Appétit is very simple - the recipes. There seems to be more writing in the magazine now about food topics and people and places. That’s okay, but long time subscribers are going to be looking for what we could always depend on – great recipes that are possible (and not always easy) to make at home and that wow our family and friends. No list of favorite places can compete with that. 

Chicken and Mango Lettuce Wraps

Now that Bon Appétit is moving east and losing the wonderful Barbara Fairchild as editor (she didn’t want to relocate), I’m hoping the magazine won’t suffer a slow decline. New York is the heartbeat of the universe, of course, but you can’t deny the innovation of the California food scene. Hopefully, that will still be reflected in Bon Appétit.

I told you awhile ago that the Food Network Magazine was not at all bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. I like the thumbnail pictures of every recipe in the index and the pullout booklets – this month was 50 panini, one month was 50 kebabs. It’s not that you will actually cook 50 variations of whatever it is, but it does give great ideas for changing things up.

The October issue had a good recipe from Guy Fieri - Asian chicken in lettuce cups. His sauce was way too salty, so I changed it up a bit. Plus whenever I have a mango around I can’t help using it, so that went in too. I also added some gorgeous black rice (from Eataly) underneath the chicken mixture, to "beef" up the dish a bit.

The ingredients for the stir fry DO take ages to chop, but then the cooking and assembling is really fast. BTW, Guy says his recipe serves 6 to 8. No way.

Chicken and Mango Lettuce Wraps (serves 3)

Adapted from Guy Fieri’s Asian Chicken Lettuce Cups

Printable recipe here

Sauce:

3 oz. light soy sauce

2 tbls. water

2 tbls. red wine vinegar

1 tbl. red hot sauce

3 tbls. plum sauce

1 tbl. hoisin sauce

1 tbl. dry sherry

½ tsp. sesame oil

1 clove garlic, minced

For frying:

1 tbl. vegetable oil

2 large slices ginger, unpeeled

Filling:

1 lb. boneless chicken breast, diced

2 small carrots, diced

½ red or orange pepper, diced

Handful snow peas, halved lengthwise and cut into dice

½ red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ cup nuts, chopped

2 scallions, sliced

½ cup diced mango

For serving:

3 large Iceberg lettuce leaves

1 cup cooked black or brown rice, heated up

Mix all ingredients together for sauce. Set aside.

Heat oil and ginger in wok or sauté pan over medium high heat. Add chicken and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add carrots, peppers, snow peas, red onion, garlic and nuts. Stir fry for 3 to 4 minutes, making sure chicken is cooked. Take out ginger slices.

Add 1/3 cup of sauce to mixture and cook, stirring, for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sliced scallions and mango. Place 3 large lettuce leaves on 3 plates. Spoon 1/3 cup rice on top of each lettuce leaf. Top with chicken and mango mixture. Serve remaining sauce separately.

Gourmet Magazine Going Out Of Business

Read about it here.

I wonder if foodies divide (divided) themselves by which food magazine they read. Was there a clash between the erudite Gourmet subscriber and the more down-to-earth Bon Appétit reader?

For a long time, I subscribed to both. I read Gourmet, but I USED Bon Appétit. But after awhile, I wasn’t even READING Gourmet, unless I had a long train or plane ride. They were just piling up, so I stopped subscribing. Yet every time I did read a new Gourmet, I always determined that I SHOULD read it regularly again, because it was so darn good. This was especially true after Ruth Reichl took over. (Was that REALLY 10 years ago?)

Time got away from me, though, and I never did. I wonder if that was part of the problem….that we look at food magazines like Bon Appétit as ones that we actually cook from, but Gourmet is for coffee tables. It’s a shame that no one can really figure out how to make money from the web and that Gourmet can’t continue online, although its recipes will.

Au revoir! Gourmet. Or actually more accurately…Adios.

The Next Food Network Star Is NOT A Person Whose Show I Will Be Watching

Oh my, Adam’s doing push-ups in his boxers. Gross. I certainly hope that means he’s going home, although many others should be up for that honor as well.

And guess what? Another pointless challenge this week…Cat Cora delivers the good news. (Shane is really taken by her and gawking at her hotness like a 19 year old. Oh wait, he IS 19 years old.)

Each contestant is given a picnic basket with ingredients from which they have to create and prepare a dish in 75 seconds!!! Just kidding, actually it’s not much better. They have 30 minutes to make it and then they have to describe it on camera.

Lisa
Udon noodle salad with a ginger vinaigrette, lemon chicken and beet browned butter

Jennifer
Pork tenderloin with almonds and Swiss chard, prosciutto and mangos

Kelsey
Pan seared cod with saffron polenta and a blood orange beurre blanc

Shane
Flank steak with cumin, avocado, anchovies and roasted garlic with a habanero compound butter

Adam
Shitake Mushroom and Turkey Salad over Napa cabbage

Aaron
Chocolate strawberry shortcake

Aaron admits he’s not “a camera person”. Ummm, Aaron, you seem like a lovely guy, BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE THEN??!

Cat tells them time is up and she gives the challenge a twist. They have to taste SOMEONE ELSE’s dish and describe it on camera in 90 seconds, without any previous information about it. Yeah, that’s an everyday situation that they’ll find themselves in…NOT!

Kelsey isn’t that bad, but she said it was a citrus butter instead of a habanero butter. Then we see Shane kind of mocking her, “SHE SAID it was a citrus butter.” Pipe down Shane, let’s see how well you do. (That kid is starting to get on my nerves and I liked him before.)

Shane has to describe Kelsey’s dish. All the ingredients are clearly identifiable, so he doesn’t have as hard a time. He is comfortable and Cat likes his energy.

Adam has to taste Aaron’s dish. This one is easy, but, apparently, not easy enough. He calls it a Napoleon. Adam really knows nothing about cooking. He is slightly funny, except that he takes a huge bite, when he should have been wrapping up.

Aaron is even worse. He takes a bite of Adam’s food and keeps chewing and chewing. Then another bite and more chewing. He only gets a few sentences out before his time is up. If he had been doing a commercial for dentures, it would have been very effective. And are we supposed to excuse him because he’s not “a camera person”?

Lisa gets Jennifer’s pork tenderloin dish. She identifies a few ingredients accurately and isn’t a total mess in front of the camera. Cat thought Lisa was being a bit fake. Whatever…this is so inane.

Jennifer is last. She describes Lisa’s udon noodles as linguine. She chews and cuts and can’t identify the ingredients. She really struggles without having said anything. Cat comes right out and says, “You don’t really know your foods.”

Cat declares Shane to be the winner. I think he wishes he had won a date with Cat.

Cat comes back after the break with Barbara Fairchild. She’s much too distinguished a food professional to be wrapped up in this. But she didn’t ask me for my advice, so there she is next to Cat as she gives them the next challenge.

They have to take the following traditional dishes and reinvent them to be accessible to the home cook AND they have to be prepared in 45 minutes:
Beef Wellington
Coq au Vin
Turducken

They’ll be working with partners and each one also has to prepare a side dish. They will be serving the judges and the editors and staff of Bon Appétit. Plus the winning recipe will be in the August issue of Bon Appétit, hence Barbara Fairchild’s participation. They keep reminding us that Cat Cora is Executive Chef of Bon Appétit. Does that mean that when they have important people to entertain, she breezes in and fixes a little sump’n sump’n?

As the winner, Shane gets to pick his dish first. He chooses Beef Wellington, which he’ll be doing with Kelsey. He gets to assign the other dishes. Adam and Aaron will do the Coq au Vin. Lisa and Jennifer get Turducken.

Adam completely mispronounces coq au VIN, which may or may not indicate that he can cook it. My guess is that it’s not a good sign. They have 30 minutes to shop.

Shane is happy with his partner. Lisa is not. Jennifer says Lisa is really bossy. Adam goes for bone-in chicken breasts. Aaron buys boneless. For heaven’s sake, why wouldn’t they use boneless thighs? There’s so much more flavor. They blew it.

They start the chicken. Adam is doing polenta. Aaron is doing a pasta dish. He remembers Adam serving undercooked eggs on the train episode and he gets nervous about the chicken. What a surprise, Adam’s chicken IS not cooking fast enough. They have 30 seconds to serve. The plates are disgusting. Aaron says a three year old could do better.

Aaron does a terrible job at the presentation. Adam is funny. They get asked if the pasta was supposed to be draped over the bowl. Stupidly they say no. Barbara liked Adam’s presentation. Kristine Kidd hated the polenta. Bobby said the red wine and chicken are supposed to be as one.

Jennifer is doing acorn squash as a side dish. Really dumb, that takes longer than the short time they have. She also breaks an entire glass jar over the acorn squash as it’s cooking, as well as one duck leg that Lisa was counting on to give some flavor to the stuffing.

Lisa was unequivocal that all of it had to be thrown out because of the broken glass. Now, tell me the truth, have you EVER served something that was potentially, while maybe not lethal, just a little dicey? I certainly don’t anymore, but I’m positive that in my earlier, thriftier years, there may have times when I fudged an expiration date (NEVER on poultry or meat) or two. But I’m also sure the only person I would ever have done that to is H. And he probably deserved it.

Jennifer not only destroys her side dish and Lisa’s duck leg, she also ruins the sauce. Lisa tries to fix it, but has other things to do, so Jenn keeps playing with it. Time runs out and Jenn says they can’t serve it. Lisa says fine and then says she’ll probably regret it.

Their presentation is fine until Jennifer starts apologizing and explains everything that went wrong in the kitchen. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all my years in the kitchen, it’s that YOU NEVER APOLOGIZE.

I promise you it’s true when I tell you that people won’t notice much of anything. They’re just grateful not to be dragging the Lean Cuisine out of the freezer. The only exception to this is incredibly spoiled husbands, who have been fed way too well for way too long and comment on every little misstep in the kitchen. (Better watch out for that ground glass.)

Barbara says the dish is a little dry and needs a sauce. Susie says they copped out because they should have had one thing inside the other.

Shane and Kelsey have a lot to do. Kelsey is rushing around, burning herself. Shane’s also having a hard time. Kelsey says that because the two of them are the youngest, the judges are looking to see a high level of expertise. I’m just looking for them not be nitwits.

Shane wishes the plates looked better. He introduces the dish well…as a No-Nightmare Beef Wellington. Kelsey says she used fresh vegetables instead of roasted.

The Bon Appétit photographer says the presentation is poor. Cat Cora said the filet is cooked well. The restaurant person didn’t like the dish. He said the flavors didn’t come together. And Bob said he wished Kelsey would stop saying she cooked this and that in culinary school, sounding as if she has no real world experience, which of course, she doesn’t.

I’ve just decide that Shane is going to win, not just this week, but the whole thing. Not because he’s good, but because he’s the least bad.

Back in the judging room, Bobby starts with Shane and Kelsey. Her descriptions on camera of absolutely delicious and beautiful mean absolutely nothing. Bob says to stop mentioning culinary school. It doesn’t inspire confidence. Susie says their dish wasn’t attractive. Cat says the flavor was good.

On to Jennifer and Lisa, Bob says it was hard to watch Jennifer’s tape. They blast her for saying it was udon noodles. She really is a complete mess. The Turducken is blasted for a lack of flavor. Jen admits all her errors. They say her presentation is good, though. For some reason, the judges don’t mention the apologizing this time. Lisa does ok.

Susie says Aaron spent his whole time tasting Adam’s dish. Cat says he didn’t own it. Didn’t own it? He didn’t even rent it for an hour. Bob says the flavor was good, but had nothing to do with coq au vin. Cat says the same thing.

Bob says that Adam’s food is not good and that he’s only there because of his personality. That’s slightly frightening when the head of programming admits that one of the six finalists on TNFNS can’t cook.

At this point I wouldn’t watch any of them. Well, I actually might watch Kelsey to see how annoying she was.

The winner of the Bon Appétit challenge is Shane and Kelsey’s 45 minute Beef Wellington. And they’re both safe. They can leave the room. Then Bob does the Heidi trick of saying the names of the others in a serious doomsday way. Lisa…Aaron…dumdumdumdum duuuummmmm…Adam and Jennifer.

Lisa is safe. For some reason Aaron is too. It’s just Jennifer and Adam. Adam and Jennifer. Jennifer and…oh, you get the idea. They both stink. “From a culinary standpoint, you’re on thin ice,” says Bobby about Adam. We can only hope that he falls through sooner than later.

Susie says Jennifer doesn’t demonstrate a high level of expertise. That’s the understatement of the century, well, at least of the hour. They’re getting rid of Jennifer…as they should have. “I gave up a lot to be here”, she whines. “I’m still going to continue to be great mother and chef.” Who cares, just leave. Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud?