Small Bites

For more on Gourmet's closing:
- The Times chronicles the life of the magazine and gets reaction to its closing.
and
- Ruth Reichl will write a memoir about her time at Gourmet.
Part of why I find the magazine's closing so sad is that Gourmet covered a niche of the food world in a specific design and manner not done by any other magazine. I've seen some criticism that lately the magazine's quality had deteriorated, but with declining ad pages, it had fewer resources to keep up. Most other food magazines run what could perhaps be considered more utilitarian content - simple recipes and day-to-day cooking tips and there seems to be so much overlap in that area. It's true - Gourmet was more of a magazine for foodies, covering restaurant news, food and travel and entertaining for a more sophisticated, high-brow audience. But, at least it was original. One writer, over on Salon.com, argues it was also a magazine for the "young and scrappy".

- Slate conducts a yogurt taste test. I've only tried two of the yogurts tested here (Stonyfield Farm and Wallaby), but was surprised at the results.

- New York city calorie counts aren't changing the food choices people make. This surprises me because I've noticed that they do in fact influence me - for instance, in deciding between ice cream flavors at Baskin-Robbins, I'll likely just choose the one with fewer calories.
and
- Fast-food bans in poor neighborhoods (like the ones in Los Angeles) aren't working either.