Farewell to Cooking Light

The magazine Cooking Light is folding and I seem to be the last person in the world to know. This despite my longtime subscription which I have reported on at great length over the time I have been keeping this, ahem, chronicle.

Our subscriptions are being replaced with subscriptions to Eating Well. I already subscribe to Eating Well so we will have to see how this sorts out. Oh (Eating) well....

I suspected many times that Cooking Light was circling the drain.

There was the issue in 2010 that, all it did was yell at you.

There was the Thanksgiving of the "cooked plants."

And my suspicion that the magazine was trying to get me addicted to breadsticks.

I get the idea they repeat and recycle a lot of recipes. Just now I opened the Farewell Issue at random and it opened to "Shrimp and Grits." I know I have seen versions of that before.

The magazine irritated me to the last. There is that word "gut" unattractively used literally, as in the illustration above.

Gut ist nicht gut! When that word first surfaced maybe five years ago I knew right away it was here to stay, and sure enough.

Yet as I have written before, the price kept dropping, and I kept capitulating, and I do look forward to the monthly thump of the magazine in the mailbox.

I like pretending I am organized and crossing off the recipes as I make them.

I like the food photography. I liked this one editor, Ann Taylor Pittman. And the magazine's most recent makeover -- the last of dozens -- looked good.

Plus, I just like the excuse to consume.

I'll have to find another!

Gimme the skinny

We do not normally write about world events here at the Leonard Pennario Web log. Pennario did not talk politics and neither as a rule do we. You make enemies that way!

And so instead of talking about events in France let us turn to Cooking Light.

I have this on-again off-again thing with Cooking Light. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it. For instance it always shows super-skinny women cooking things like cookies. As in the Getty Images picture above.

There was that time it told me everything that was wrong with my cooking.

And the business with the cooked plants.

I still stand by these gripes I aired several years ago.

And these...hahahahaha! I stand by them too! No wonder there the time in '12 when I renewed it and instantly regretted it. I am starting to regret renewing it now, just looking back.

However, I beat that price! That was $8 and this time I got it for $5.

It is amazing it is still here so I can do that. "I am starting to think Cooking Light is hitting the skids. When I used to get it before, it was better." That is what I wrote, yikes, five years ago! I noted that the magazine had just been redesigned and in my experience that meant it was probably in trouble. Well, now it is five years later and Cooking Light is still going. It has been redesigned something like five times, too.

You know what, though, I was thinking the other day, I have to chill. I like these cooking magazines. It brightens my day when I find one in the mailbox. My heart soars when I can add to my clutter!
So I should quit letting them bug me.

However, I do reserve my right to kvetch.

It is just so delicious!