Format Hits and Misses

Congrats on your new Food pages. Very positive, thank you. Hope to try some of the featured recipes. It would be helpful to know where items as 5-spice could be found! It’s very nice that my Los Angeles Times cares so much about its customers.

--VIRGINIA RAMIROS, Oxnard

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I love the new look of the Food section of The Times. The only negative is that sometimes a recipe is back to back or part of it gets cut off and it necessitates either hand copying or photocopying one of the recipes.

The March 23 issue was an example of what I mean. The recipe for Marston’s white lightning chili backed up to the lemon meringue cake with fresh strawberry sauce on H22. I had to take the cake recipe to work, piece it together and photocopy it in order to be able to use it. Maybe you could put the recipes on the back pages of the food advertisements. Just a thought.

--SANDRA KNECHTEL, Pasadena

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I wanted to tell you how much I like the new layout of the Food section. The way you arrange the recipes is great. It makes them much easier to cut out and save. I also like the back page. Even though I haven’t actually used the menu plans you’ve featured, I appreciate the format.

--TONI KYLE, Playa Del Rey

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It’s a shame, when you have a thoroughly informative Food section that you have to imitate the multitude of magazines on today’s magazine racks. We, who are really interested in cooking, do not need pretty enlarged colored pictures, enlarged type, realigned recipes! We can do that ourselves.

For 40 years I’ve been able to go with my type of shopping lists--come on, we’re adults, not kindergartners who need bigger, more colorful pictures.

You really had one of the most creative and informative Food sections--and to make it look pretty or prettier, well, I think your taste is any place but in a cook’s kitchen!

--AUDREY VITKUS, Las Vegas

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