RIP Gourmet (Sorry, I'm so so so sorry.....)

There seem to be as many types of responses as there are stages of grief surfacing over the recently announced death of Gourmet magazine.

I will admit, the end of Gourmet Magazine does seem to spell the end of some sort of era. There are those like Paige Orlof,genuinely eulogizing, seeking out family members for solace and respectfully reflecting how much the magazine has meant to her over the span of years, speculatively sharing how much she among so many others will miss her monthly copy.

Orlof's response along with others like hers, seems to reasonably fall within various stages of depression moving towards acceptance. As advised, one ought not try to hustle anybody through from one stage to the next, allowing time and grieving to do their own work.

There are others unfortunately stuck in some sort of earlier denial/anger stage, insisting on finger pointing as potentially typified by these dueling op ed pieces (delightfully or annoyingly, depending on your stance, playing out further in the comments sections for each) about whether food blogs and their authors are to be blamed for the failure of what many considered the flagship of high end food publications.Christopher Kimball in his NYT piece, Gourmet to All That, seems to feel food bloggers exemplify What is Wrong with American Food Writing Today. Kimball writes "The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up."

In reply, Adam Roberts, aka the Amateur Gourmet posted A Response to C. Kimball wherein he proposes that "while the medium may continue to change, cream still rises to the top".I am no expert and I am most definitely not a dairy product. But because my Momma raised me to always be polite, especially about the dead, as one of some supposed thirty three thousand food bloggers on the internet*, I want to be near the front of the line to offer my personally-public apology to Ruth Reichland her readership, for taking Gourmet off the newstands.Ms. Reichl, Mr. Kimball, Interweb, and American Public in the form of my dozen (on a great day) readers: I am very very sorry my food blog killed your beloved Gourmet Magazine.

I did not mean for that to happen and I really, truly am sorry my blog posts are the reason this acclaimed magazine will no longer appear in mailboxes or on neighborhood newsstands.

If I had any idea my food blog would crash Gourmet magazine I would have never selfishly persisted in posting. I would most certainly take Eater's offer of twenty five dollars to shut my blog down forever, potentially even using that money to buy a subscription all my own to Gourmet which would clearly still be flourishing except for me and my incredibly influential two (to twelve!) regular readers.

I plead ignorance as my only defense.

After watching all the predictions come true as one by one MTV eliminated radio stations; VCRs eliminated movie theaters; online music sales eliminated record companies; and most recently Kindle eliminated all the publishing houses, I simply should have known the internet generally, and my food blog specifically, would be responsible for taking down the Gourmet empire.

I turned a blind eye to the facts, interweb, and I selfishly insisted on irregularly putting posts out where people could choose to read them if they wanted to. I was wrong, I was not acting in the best interests of Condé Nast, and now there are people who have lost their jobs because of me and my blog.

Taking this model out to its logical conclusion, I wish to preemptively apologize to the people working long and hard at the presumably similarly doomed Traveller magazine. Apparently your necks will be next on the line.I have willfully shared my vacation photos with friends and family all these years which will obviously be responsible, sooner if not later, for bringing about the demise of Traveller magazine.

I am sorry, I am ashamed, and I can only hope you will forgive me. I really had no idea.....

*I cannot say if the statement there are some thirty-three thousand food bloggers is correct. I just know I read it somewhere - probably on a food blog....