Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 14, 1993 TAG: 9304140161
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH KASTOR THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THESE MAGAZINES BRING COOKING DOWN TO EARTH
Food magazines serve a simple function: Even the most devoted glutton cannot eat 24 hours a day, but we all can stare endlessly at tortes and tarts, fantasizing over recipes, wondering if a jar of specially pickled onions available by mail is worth $24.95.Some food-crazy folks go all the way and wallow in food erotica, caressing the pages of Gourmet and Bon Appetit, telling themselves that tonight they really will make the strawberry cheesecake in macaroon crust that graces the cover of Bon Appetit this month.
Others find reading such magazines as frustrating as perusing the glossier travel publications: Because I clearly am never going to get to Tahiti, I don't care to know which hotel there has the best room service; and because I will never make the elaborate concoctions featured in many of the food-porn magazines, I'd rather not know about them.
But below the level of the food aristocrats there is a realm of idiosyncratic publications that, at the very least, don't imply that you must wear a tuxedo and refit your kitchen with new copper pots just to try a recipe for potatoes.
For those obsessed with heat, there's Chile Pepper, a bimonthly paean to peppers of all sorts. Most issues are dedicated to one region: A recent focus was the Caribbean (jerk pork and Congo peppers), and the current issue turns to New Mexico (pepper art, chili and spicy breads). Books about spices are reviewed, hot products offered for sale, updates given on how the Tabasco peppers of Louisiana survived Hurricane Andrew, and the debate over the hottest pepper in the world continues issue to issue.
Chile Pepper: $15.95 for six issues, P.O. Box 15308, North Hollywood, Calif. 91615-5308.
\ Cooking Light: The Magazine of Food and Fitness is an easygoing collection of articles and recipes. The health sections of all publications have a certain sameness by now, and Cooking Light's is no exception. It is neither excessively harsh nor excessively meek in its espousal of low-fat, high-fiber foods; and most of the recipes are not overly dependent on grains you've never heard of. It is not a wildly adventurous magazine, but more of an "I-just-got-home-from-work-what-should-we-eat" kind of magazine.
Cooking Light: $20 for seven issues, P.O. Box 830549, Birmingham, Ala. 35282-9810.
Yearning to bathe in nostalgia for a life you probably never even experienced? Try the premiere issue of the Old Farmer's Almanac Hearth & Home 1993 Companion (yes, the title's a mouthful, but even that bit of verbosity has an eccentrically antiquated feel to it).
The annual companion lives up to expectations. Like the almanac itself, the companion is peppered with the sort of information you didn't realize you needed until you came upon it, such as extensive directions on storing different vegetables or many small facts about eggs.
No yuppies roam through these pages. High-tech never happened. Here you can read about "The Forgotten Art of Napkin Folding." And when the Farmer's Almanac people write about coffee, they're not talking about espresso - they're making an argument against old-fashioned percolators, making you wonder where they were when everyone else was switching to drip coffee. There also are recipes for pot pies and a love letter to lard.
Old Farmer's Almanac Hearth & Home 1993 Companion: $2.50, on newsstands.
\ Vegetarian Journal is a magazine for the Seriously Vegetarian. It bills itself as a magazine of health, ecology and ethics, accepts no paid advertising and is published by the Vegetarian Resource Group, a nonprofit educational group based in Baltimore. Recipes are low-fat and rely on soy products rather than milk. The current issue offers recipes for butter alternatives, some of which look intriguing, others of which defy the imagination of those who don't have an intimate relationship with flax seed and millet miso.
There are updates on science relating to vegetarian diets, a listing of "animal rights resources" and a gallant effort to redefine Irish cooking with lots of potatoes, parsnips and Guinness stout. And, of course, no corned beef.
Vegetarian Journal: $20 for six issues, P.O. Box 1463, Baltimore, Md. 21203.