The joys of old Gourmet magazines…..Today, I subscribe to Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, and Saveur magazines. If you add up every moment of pleasure that I have received from reading these 3 magazines, for the last 5 years, the grand total comes no where near the absolute joy I experienced from reading just one of the 1987 Gourmet magazines that were just given to me. My dear sister-in-law, Vicki, is packing up all their worldly goods and are about to downsize to a lovely home that is smaller, but Tom won’t have to mow the grass or shovel snow, and Vicki will have a wonderful painting studio space.
One of her treasures that she has decided to give up is a stack of 1987-88 Gourmet magazines, and she knew they would have an appreciative home, here with me.

As I settled into my big old chair, the stack of magazines at my feet, I reached for the oldest issue, January, 1987. With granny-glasses perched near the end of my nose, a glass of iced tea close at hand, I, with great expectation, began to absorb the beauty of the cover. A tall thin glass of Rum Punch, complete with an orange slice and a cherry balanced on the rim of the glass, with the brilliant turquoise Caribbean behind, made me wish for a week on beautiful St Barts.
I turned the pages, as if the magazine was fragile, when in fact, the paper it is printed on is heavy and rich feeling, the way beautiful magazines used to feel. I love the photographs. I devoured the travel articles on Heidelberg and skiing in Telluride. And then, with great expectations, I moved through the actual recipes.
So many  memories! Sure, they were definitely dated….but that just made them more interesting, sort of like wandering through your grandmother’s attic and marveling at the beautiful long forgotten antiques.
Those recipes that really made my heart race were begging me to enter them into my Master Cook software. Not all of them are available on www.epicurious.com for downloading directly into MC, but they have Gourmet's recipes going back to the1940s! It looks like I will have to enter them the hard way, but it will be worth my time. And besides, I will always have the magazines.
Today, there is http://live.gourmet.com ! Check it out….not the magazine, yet still fun to wander through the years of recipes, travel notes, etc.
 Of course...there is an app for that!
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 The Deadline is nearly upon me….it looks like I will either be standing at my easel day and night for the next 4 days, or I go with the paintings I have. My series of nudes is comprised of 2! Some series, eh? Maybe, as I once again become used to painting the human figure, I might pick up a little speed….then again….
I will add a few landscapes for this show.

Anyway, please join me and the other Somerset Ridge Painters this Saturday at Somerset Ridge Vineyard for our 1st Annual show. Cindy and Dennis have all sorts of fun things going on at the winery and in the vineyard as their part of the Miami County Farm Tour!
http://www.somersetridge.com/