Cook’s Magazine Is Back for Seconds

The executive editor of the resuscitated Cook’s magazine is sitting in a coffee shop, talking about why the magazine should never have died the first time, when a waitress walks over.

“Wow! Cook’s! I thought that was gone,” she said, picking up the charter issue.

It was as if Mark Bittman had hired her to make his point that Cook’s readers were enthusiastic until the end, which came in July, 1990, after a decade.

Publisher Christopher Kimball has brought the magazine back as Cook’s Illustrated--smaller, not so slick and without advertising. Hence a $19.95 subscription price for six issues and a $4 cover price.

The magazine, on the stands this month, needs 50,000 subscribers to operate, Kimball said. Like Ms. magazine, which also takes no ads, Cook’s Illustrated is aiming for a specific audience--a method of publishing that Kimball said is likely to grow.

Bittman said the lack of ads will liberate the magazine to publish stories and criticism it might otherwise shy away from. “If Bertolli is one of your advertisers,” he said, “how can you do an olive oil tasting and have it be legitimate?”

The charter issue has an olive oil tasting, and the surprising winner was a commercial brand available in supermarkets at $5.29 a liter, far from the most expensive of oils. (Bertolli was ranked 10th of 17 oils tested.)

Each 32-page issue also will include a wine tasting, with a panel of wine experts and “regular” people who like wine.

“I feel that what wine professionals look for and what we do isn’t the same,” said Bittman, adding that his friends ask for wine recommendations based on price, not on vintage.

Cook’s Illustrated aims to teach people how to cook, not just provide recipes, and to do it with a serious but irreverent point of view. The first issue is full of well-known food writers, including Harold McGee, Dorie Greenspan, Nina Simonds and Richard Sax. And there are plenty of precise drawings to help the cook along.

In addition to the tastings, many of the stories focus on techniques. Sax provides a master recipe, for example, for a batter for puddings, popovers, breakfast pancakes and souffleed skillet pancakes.

A story about making vegetable soup provides a master recipe and directions for varying it. “I could give you a book with 600 vegetable soup recipes, or I could show you what they all have in common,” Bittman said.

Cook’s Illustrated is counting on the seriousness of people who cook for themselves these days, among them people who ate out nightly in the free-spending ‘80s but now find themselves with children and less to spend.

“There’s a big-time backlash against stupid ingredients. Zucchini flowers--they’re fun once in your life,” Bittman said. “There’s a backlash against overly complicated cooking.”

Today, Bittman hopes, people will spend time in the kitchen to cook good ingredients, simply. “The best roast chicken recipe is a valuable thing to have.”