Dine Modesto

Fine Cooking

Description

For people with an avid interest in the pleasures of cooking. Includes detailed information on food, food preparation and principles of good cooking.

Reviews

Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2010-08-22
Summary: "Magazine now just photos and recipes -- no articles"

I agree with the others who commented on how the magazine has changed from its previous format. I used to enjoy Fine Cooking and when it would arrive I'd sit down to read the articles. The emphasis on teaching technique and learning how to cook and bake with your five senses is now gone. There's actually very little to read! Gone are the feature articles written by the chefs and cooks themselves. It's just large, photos of perfectly photo-styled food (no graphics showing you dishes in progress) and recipes. I'm very disappointed. I learned so much from the likes of Joanne Chang, Alice Medrich, Abby Dodge and others in the magazine since we started subscribing over a decade ago. Now it's just another lightweight glossy with little substance. Aren't there already enough of those? Come back, old Fine Cooking.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-08-17
Summary: "Best Potato Salad Feature I've Ever Read"

I was very delighted to discover the Fine Cooking August/September issue feature on potato salad. While I have been honing my culinary talents in some areas (like homemade cinnamon rolls or waffles on occasion), I had not made a homemade potato salad in years. I think this issue of the publication has the best article on potato salad I have ever read, and I just made the best potato salad I've ever made. I used Hellman's real mayonnaise mixed with Greek yogurt over nicely boiled and cubed Yukon Gold potatoes to which some salt, black pepper and red wine vinegar had been added. I mixed in fresh chives, radishes, and celery as well as some Spanish capers. One recipe called for boiling the potatoes in white rice wine, but I didn't have any. I topped the mixture with paprika. I didn't use eggs, but the potatoes were delicious without them.

What I loved about the feature was the fantastic layout of the article which clarified the two broad types of potato salads and the host of ingredients that can be added. Everyone should have this article.

I can't wait to try the apricot slab bread featured on the cover, as well as the blackberry turnovers in the pastry feature inside.

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Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2009-11-26
Summary: "Lots of recipe errors in this magazine..."

I purchased a fine cooking magazine from our local bookstore as I was going to find a new recipe for a "Wow dessert". I decided to pick up their holiday edition and was sad to say that this magazine is riddled with errors in their recipes. I found multiple recipes where pictures and instructions were missing.

An example: Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake. This is a layer cake with chocolate mousse filling / topping. Errors in this recipe include:

A. No picture or instruction that tells the reader that they will need to cut the cake in half to make the layer cake. The recipe referred to the cake "pan" as a singular and it was very confusing. It was not until I went to the site to verify the recipe did it include the proper pictures / instruction.

B. Missing ingredients from the list. I don't know who edits this magazine, but it really is horrendous to exclude ingredients. The above chocolate mousse layer cake recipe requires that the wet and dry ingredients be added together. Then additional water be added, but there is no reference in the magazine to the amount of water as an ingredient. On the website, the recipe was corrected.

I'm okay with a minor error or instruction, it happens, but to have such HUGE RECIPE ERRORS really is unprofessional and frustrating.

I personally will never reference Finecooking again for any recipe. There are better, more reliable sources out there.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-11-11
Summary: "The Chef Loves It."

I bought this subscription to give to my son who is a newly-graduated chef. He says he loves the magazine and brings a copy over now and then--all dog-eared and full of book-marks but he has never left a copy with me so I've only been able to thumb through them at the book store. I might have to get my own copy.

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Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2009-07-10
Summary: "Editors Ruined Magazine w/New Format"

I agree with every single review here that gives Fine Cooking five stars. It was always my favorite food magazine -- with the focus on proper technique, rather than upon fancy pictures put together by food "stylists," rather than cooks.

"Was" is the operative word though. This year Fine Cooking felt it had to "fix" something that was nowhere near "broke" and they turned FC into exactly the "food stylist" type of magazine that had sent me into the arms of Fine Cooking to begin with. The new format is all style over substance; indeed, there are so many "pretty" stylized pictures that it is now difficult to read -- the text gets lost.

FC also lost the unique personal style from the original FC -- the old format had these simple articles, oftentimes with a cook giving you the take on a single technique or ingredient. The cook was right there with you, with their hands on the food, and their smiling face beaming at you the beginning of the article. It looked like real food being cooked in front of you by a real person, rather than stylized food being glossed up with shellac before a hot camera.

Alas, that is all gone now. There are still a few good recipes, such as the excellent "Grill Braising" article by Bruce Aidells (my guess is that Bruce was under contract before they changed the format). But why wasn't Bruce in the shots, instead of these picture-perfect creations? And why did the text have to be so difficult to read?

I can say I am not alone in my disdain; others I know here were also heartbroken when the format changed, and the online blogs and FC's own blog included many angered by the change. Some did like it -- but then there are lots of people who do like these "stylized" publications, I'm just not one of them. Its just not what I looked for in Fine Cooking. My subscription has now lapsed, although I hope they bring back the old format (my guess is that they lost many subscribers).

In any event -- I thought that this review was necessary to give fair warning to those reading the OLD reviews about the OLD FC format. "New" is not always necessarily "improved."