Last time we talked about "personality" cooking magazines.  Now I'll finally tell you what my idea of a great food magazine is.

Cook's Illustrated is the only cooking magazine I subscribe to.  It's an amazing achievement among magazines - there are no ads.  None at all.  That means that when they review a product, you can really trust their opinion - you know they didn't have to worry about any advertiser's feelings.  It's put out by the people from America's Test Kitchen on PBS, and if you're familiar with the TV show then the format of the magazine will come as no surprise.  Every recipe has been dissected and experimented upon until they think they've come up with the absolute best "whatever" - the latest issue has beef stroganoff, chewy brownies, bread pudding, leek-potato soup, polenta, pan seared chicken breasts, and more. 

The product reviews are the best in the genre, and user-submitted kitchen tips are excellent.  (Having trouble getting the tomato paste out of the can?  Use your can opener to open both ends and push the whole thing through from the bottom.)  The website is absolutely fantastic, although it does require a separate subscription.  It offers a full archive of everything that's ever been in the magazine plus bonus recipes and reviews.  I use it all the time when I need a new food gadget and only want the best.  (Another feature - the best isn't always the most expensive.  Far from it, in fact.) 

Multiple versions of every recipe are exhaustively tested both by staff and by volunteer testers.  I signed up to test recipes a few years ago, so every few months I get an e-mail with a recipe and a survey.  It's a lot of fun - some are great, some are... less great.  You feel a little sense of accomplishment when you see a version of something you tested make it to the magazine.  (I suppose that none of the versions of the enchiladas verde were any good - it got a big thumbs down from us, at any rate.  Maybe they're still working on it.)  Right now I've got shumai pork steamed dumplings in my inbox - I'm going to give them a try when I have the time to do it.

We've got Cooks Illustrated bound from 2002 to the present, so stop by and take a look at it! 

These cooking magazines I've profiled in the last week are just the tip of the iceberg here in the Periodicals Department.  We've got food periodicals coming out our ears - I didn't even touch on Clean Eating, Everyday Food, Southern Living, Vegetarian Times...  we've got it all.  If you're looking for a specific recipe, be sure to ask us!