Roots and Grubs

The Auspicious Companion

Posted by mamster on Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The April issue of Food Arts came today. Food Arts is a glossy restaurant industry magazine; you can get a free subscription by following the link and posing as a culinary professional.

In our house, Food Arts is synonymous with one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time: Famous Chefs Naked with their Blender. Month after month, chefs—male, female, skinny, chubby, you name it—would pose with their Vita-Mix blender obscuring various parts. I could only find one example:

Marcus Samuelsson naked with his blender

but if you could choose a chef to see naked with their blender, I figure Marcus Samuelsson is probably the one anyway. Sadly, the ad campaign ended a while ago, but the magazine keeps coming. I’m not sure how I would unsubscribe if I wanted to.

It must be hard to figure out what to put on the cover of a magazine whose cover story, month after month, is “Restaurants are great! Eat out more often!” But this month really takes the gateau. It’s a picture of a cheese plate, with the headline:

Flavor: The Foolproof Indulgence

Coming up with meaningless slogans like this would be a great parlor game. Polenta: The Intrepid Warrior!