Customer Reviews

Food & Wine (1-year)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

"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 long- over 250 pages- and 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 high- class 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.

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".

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it" (Oscar Wilde)

Great food and superb wines tempt me. Thus, I am an aficionado of food magazines. Three magazines (Food & Wine, Gourmet, Southern Living) nested in my mail box monthly and all of them satiate my longing for great food and wine.

Food & Wine is supreme. It promotes dishes that are 1) fast, 2) healthy and 3) can be made ahead and each recipes gives you the time needed to prepare, the recipes' calories, fat and the carb. count.

I really like the table of contents "Recipes" page, where all the magazine's recipes are categorized much like a cookbook (Soup&Starter, Salads&Vegetables, Pasta, Grains&Breads, Fish/Shellfish, Poultry, Meat, Desserts).

When there are recipe photos they are good to very good (more photo would be a welcome addition) thus enticing you to attempt the recipe.

One suggestion for improvement would be a column of "best buys" wines or "Good wines under $10". Most of the wines that are profiled are, for me, expensive (i.e. 1/2003 issue `Ice Wines' $52, $75, $65 $17, $35, $40).

Food & Wine is excellent in all regards and highly recommended.

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.

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.

Maybe I was just hoping for too much from one magazine - a good wine magazine with some recipies thrown in. The recipies are good, but the wine secion is a sparse and unsophisticated afterthought. The articles are truly grating, focusing in agonizing detail on the trendy parties thrown by the editors' friends. There is a place for a magazine like this, but don't let the name fool you; this publication is really more of an entertainment lifestyle magazine than a food magazine. What is most definitley is NOT is a wine magazine.

Hey, hey, hey -- Grilling in the USA! This is the lead article in in the first issue of Food and Wine I ever got, and as the summer approaches, and I am ready. I just pulled my grill out of the garage last week, as the temperature is warming up. This is what I love about this magazine--they are timely, and somehow know what I'm thinking.

Yes, I know--many are thinking about grilling now. This doesn't lessen the value of the magazine for me; it comes monthly with seasonal dishes and ideas for parties, formal and casual, as well as general items that would be appropriate all year round. The grilling article this month concentrates on atypical grilling possibilities -- grilled salmon with dilled mustard glaze; grilled Maryland soft-shell crabs with tartar sauce; grilled pork tenderloin fajitas; barbecues leg of lamb; many other things, including the grilling essentials (from taste-oriented requirements such as dried vines and herbs to practical needs such as mitts and a brush).

That issue of magazine also had An Ode to Beer & Baseball, another apropos article, with the subtitle which reads:

'Forget Chardonnay. The only drink that can do justice to baseball is a lukewarm, sudsy, mass-produced domestic beer.'

Now, you might not agree with this (I personally would prefer a higher-grade beer with my low-standard hot dog at the ballpark), but from this you can see this is not just a 'woman's magazine', as so many magazines of this sort get labelled.

The magazine is well-organised, well-pictured (I like to see the way food is supposed to look), and well-written; it has an index of recipes in the back of each issue, separated by food types--soups and starters, salads, eggs, vegetables, pasta etc., fish & shellfish, meat & poultry, desserts, condiments & sauces, and (in this particular issue) salsas. They also index types of cooking (formal, fast, etc.), wine recommendations and reviews, and places.

Past issues included a gatronomic tour of the restaurants of San Francisco, as well as Amsterdam. One previous issue did a 'tour of the islands', which took in not only Caribbean islands, but also Tahiti, Madagascar, and Australia. There is always at least one international article in Food and Wine which discusses both local cuisine and restaurant options, as well as how to recreate some of the dishes at home.

The section on wines is always of particular interest to me. A recent issue included a useful guide to 10 common blunders with wine, which includes storage tips, glassware cleanliness (don't destroy a good wine with a glass which has a soapy residue!), serving sequences, and more. The preceding issue kept with it's island theme by going over the best wines from islands by wine experts from 12 top resorts; earlier in the year articles included tips for getting best buys at restaurants (how to really read a wine list), how to buy to build a collection, and how to determine value in the confusing world of French wines.

One article I highly recommend comes from the February 2000 issue, The $100 Dinner Party, which discusses chef Julia Serrano from the Picasso restaurant in Las Vegas and his construction of an elegant dinner party for 10 that only cost $100. Then it has pages of wonderful tips for those on a limited budget (like poor struggling seminary students!) on how to build good and memorable menus on a shoestring.

I was given a subscription to this magazine as a gift from someone who despaired of my Domino's diet, and I have maintained the subscription due to the wonderful variety of articles, the interesting writing style, and the temptation the magazine inspires each month.

Bon appetite!

This magazine would be a delightful reading experience for a wide audience. It appeals the *most* to busy young adults, who are looking for quick, healthy, easy-to-make delicious meals, which they just *might* want to spice up with an occasional adventurous new taste in wine recommendations. There is a wonderful column on "new flavors". In the June 2004 issue it is "lemongrass". In the July issue it is "miso". There are fine recommendations for new restaurants in exotic locales, such as, Bermuda or Sao Paolo, Brazil. Also included are foods for special holidays, such as in June for "Father's day". Naturally, grilling is the "haute cuisine" on this auspicious day. The recipes for "Salmon Nicoise Sandwiches" and "Tuscan Baby Back Ribs" are mouth-watering ...

The "fast food" section is loaded with tasty healthful salads, such as, "Spicy Chicken, Avacado, and Mango Salad" and "Turkey and Green Bean Stir-Fry with Peanuts". Some grilling suggestions include, "Tandoori Pork with Gingered Mango Salad" and "Korean-Style Chicken Wraps". Needless to say, all the food is tempting and the recipes are not too difficult to accomplish, provided one is already familiar with cooking techniques.

Overall, the emphasis on this magazine is *not* on wine but instead on food. For a change of pace, the June issue has a very fine article on "vodka". In the July 2004 issue there is a superb article by Robert Parker called, "Australian Wine Guide". The regular wine column covers "German Reisling" by Richard Nailey. Most impressively, the July issue introduces the reader to "America's Best New Chefs of 2004". Of course, each selects a recipe to share. This magazine is loaded with unique articles for the adventurous cook and aspiring gourmand. Highly recommended. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

My husband got me this magazine because he knows how I love to try new dishes and wines. Unfortunately, this magazine has a very different audience than what we expected. In any given issue I might find one or two recipes that catch my interest. The others are too "food and wine snobby" for me. In addition, the magazine tries to capture that jet set feeling by telling you all about Boston, New York and Napa Valley five star restaurants. As a working mom, I doubt that I'll be able to try them in the near future. In general, this one reminds me of the magazines you get at the airlines.