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> Most magazines don't operate like this. Yes they do: Gourmet: Cookbooks, PBS show Saveur: Cookbooks, Travel Tour Packages Bon Appetit: Cookbooks (at least

by joshwa 18y ago

> Most magazines don't operate like this. Yes they do: Gourmet: Cookbooks, PBS show Saveur: Cookbooks, Travel Tour Packages Bon Appetit: Cookbooks (at least) Food + Wine: ? Cooking Light: Cookbooks, pretty sure there was a TV show for a while Fine Cooking: Cookbooks Martha Stewart Living: Cookbooks, TV, merchandising, etc Disclosure: I frequently do photography for Saveur, and my wife is an editor.

tptacek 18y ago
It may be more true of food magazines than publishing in general, but --- leaving out Martha Stewart Living (that's like bringing O Magazine in; a magazine with a lucrative sideline in television!) --- do the line of cookbooks from these magazines come anywhere near the size of Cooks Illustrated? CI does what looks like 5-10 a year. Does Saveur?
- joshwa 18y ago
  5-10 cookbooks a year sounds terrifying. The QA on those must be terrible--not sure how they could afford that number of recipe testers for each title. I tend not to buy any cookbook that has a number in the title or is part of a 'series'. Saveur does one every few years, on different themes-- Saveur Cooks Classic Italian and Saveur Cooks Classic American are still doing pretty well-- they're great references for the classics.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    No, the QA on those cookbooks is better than the QA on most software. That's the point of Cooks Illustrated. You don't even have to trust me; read a CI recipe: they've documented everything they did wrong. They not kidding: they made that coffee cake 45-50 times to get it right. Also, check out their "board of advisors"; they're name-brand people. Bittman used to be on staff, and restaurant chefs are on their tasting panels. What's funny is, CI used to have a third Consumer Reports style section where they rated other cookbooks, by turning their (large) kitchen and staff loose on the recipes and evaluating the results. CI does a better job QA'ing other people's cookbooks than they do.

by joshwa 18y ago

tptacek 18y ago

It may be more true of food magazines than publishing in general, but --- leaving out Martha Stewart Living (that's like bringing O Magazine in; a magazine with a lucrative sideline in television!) --- do the line of cookbooks from these magazines come anywhere near the size of Cooks Illustrated? CI does what looks like 5-10 a year. Does Saveur?

joshwa 18y ago
5-10 cookbooks a year sounds terrifying. The QA on those must be terrible--not sure how they could afford that number of recipe testers for each title. I tend not to buy any cookbook that has a number in the title or is part of a 'series'. Saveur does one every few years, on different themes-- Saveur Cooks Classic Italian and Saveur Cooks Classic American are still doing pretty well-- they're great references for the classics.
- tptacek 18y ago
  No, the QA on those cookbooks is better than the QA on most software. That's the point of Cooks Illustrated. You don't even have to trust me; read a CI recipe: they've documented everything they did wrong. They not kidding: they made that coffee cake 45-50 times to get it right. Also, check out their "board of advisors"; they're name-brand people. Bittman used to be on staff, and restaurant chefs are on their tasting panels. What's funny is, CI used to have a third Consumer Reports style section where they rated other cookbooks, by turning their (large) kitchen and staff loose on the recipes and evaluating the results. CI does a better job QA'ing other people's cookbooks than they do.