"Food & Wine" is a classic doctor's office magazine, particularly if that doctor is a plastic surgeon. The target audience is clearly affluent, but the advice and articles work for most anyone.
The magazine offers a wide-ranging, monthly look at several topics: home; travel; restaurant overviews; general cooking info with recipes and tips on quick meal prep; healthy eating/lifestyle; and a few wine-related articles, including food pairings and an insights into wine types and varietals.
The layout of the magazine is easy on the eyes. The design (photography and text) is in keeping with other magazine of this genre; in short, it is high-quality, but not groundbreaking. For the visually-challenged, though, the font size selection is definitely on the small side. As for the writing, it is neither better or worse than the competition. At between 100 and 120 pages, "Food & Wine" is perhaps a bit skimpy page-wise, but still average for the cover price. And while there are many ads for upper crust products, the magazine wisely clusters them in such a way that articles are less broken up over scattered pages than some other magazines a nice touch.
The recipes reflect the current trends multi-ethnic, Puck-ish, and with a bent for unusual pairings of ingredients. But to their credit, a simple scan of the recipes shows few of the bizarre, impossible-to-find ingredients that are the bread and butter of some other gourmet magazines.
Good magazine for a decent price that makes it worthwhile for even us "commoners".
Food and Wine is a pretty good magazine for those who enjoy the finer things in life when it comes to unusual cuisine and expensive fermented beverages. This publication is usually very longover 250 pagesand its packed full of recipes, travel excursions to wine growing regions, and general facts about different varieties of wine and where to find them.
One thing about this magazine that surprised me at first is the emphasis on the food. I know the magazine is titled "Food and Wine", but my initial impression was that this would be a magazine devoted entirely to wine with occasional mention of the foods that go with wine. It isn't like that at all. The food sections and the recipes are just as important as the featured wines. Recipes are so frequent, in fact, that the magazine even has an index located near the front with all the recipes listed by food type, showing the page number to turn to for the recipe.
Besides the frequent talk about food and wine, this magazine is also dedicated to entertaining. I have heard it suggested that this magazine should change its name to "Food, Wine, and Entertainment". It would make sense, because conviviality and highclass partying are certainly an important component of this magazine.
There is one thing about Food and Wine that I wish was different. I appreciate the factual information and I like the personal touch that you find in some of the stories about winery owners, chefs, and the like. But I think Food and Wine gets a little too sidetracked from time to time in its reporting. For example, it is common to find stories that talk about subjects like home decorating. This would be fine in a magazine about home design, but I don't think it belongs in a magazine like this.
Overall, this is still a good publication. Lovers of great eats and fine drinks will enjoy it the most. It's worth taking a look, if nothing else, just for the recipes. Even if you're not a frequent imbiber of the fruit of the vine, there is still something of interest to be found in the pages of this magazine.
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I subscribed to Food & Wine for a while and was continuously disappointed. The articles are on the superficial side and more importantly a lot of the recipes and product reviews are not as well researched as they should have been. I experienced more than one flop trying their stuff. The magazine tries very hard to be trendy and pick up the latest and greatest in the cooking and restaurant scene without being careful enough in deciding what is actually an important or meaningful trend rather than a fad. This magazine can't hold a candle to "Bon Appetit" or "Gourmet".
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I subscribed to this magizine for a year and liked it. I typically don't get more than one year of a subscription to this kind of magizine because collecting many years worth of magizines is more trouble to keep, and look through for recipies than what is practical.
One years worth of this magizine has given me a wide range of recipies and ideas for dinners and wine selections. My complaint is that most of the recipies use a lot of hard to find and expensive ingredients. If you're on a grocery budget, you'll be quite limited. It has articles about putting together dinner parties, and pictures of the home and guests the dinner parties are held in. In this, I found it interresting to see how different people live....although I doubt I'd ever end up at a posh dinner party discussing my summer beach house, winter ski lodge, and that great set of $80 per peice china that I just had to have....I'm more likely to be at a potluck of mix n match dishes.
Although I don't have exotic ingredients at my disposal, I have been able to alter many of the ideas presented to better fit my needs and time constraints. I found the issue las Thanksgiving on how to do a big thanksgiving dinner very usefull, and incoperated many of the recipies into thanksgiving and christmas dinners with great success.
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There are more highly regarded cooking magazines out there, but this one works for me for one simple reason: The recipes are generally dishes that I enjoy cooking, and I have yet to get a dud out of here. For the somewhat ambitious amateur like myself, this magazine works well without being too obscure.
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"The first issue should arrive in 12-16 weeks." Sure, why not? The ROM is a quarterly, after all.
