Two former fashion editors have launched a food magazine that’s artisanal enough for the Brooklyn foodie set. NYLON veterans Fiorella Valdesolo and Michele Outland had long planned on bringing their shared aesthetic to a new style magazine before deciding to tackle something new and unfamiliar. They put together the bi-annual food and recipe journal, called Gather, in less than three months.
Food-obsessed but novice, they enlisted Maggie Ruggiero, the food stylist, chef and former owner of East Village watering hole King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut to edit the recipes. With a target audience whose median age is 32, it skews younger than most food magazines.
“I’m in touch with so many twenty-somethings who are so into cooking and eating right now,” said Ms. Valdesolo, a Brooklyn style writer whose byline frequents Elle, Marie Claire, and New York.
Accustomed to tearing their favorite recipes out of Bon Appetit, they created a paperback volume that’s meant to be held on to, a cross between a magazine and a cookbook. Gather’s first run of 2,000 will be available in boutiques like Marlow’s and By Brooklyn in New York, The Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco, Room6 in Vancouver and Magpie in Somerville.
Ms. Valdesolo and Ms. Outland, whose credits include Martha Stewart Living and Domino, funded the magazine out of pocket, capitalizing on their Rolodex of freelancer friends willing to trade bargain rates for creative freedom. The result is a too-beautiful book whose visuals are more Dutch master than food porn.
Riffing on the theme “Float,” the first volume contains recipes for fried baby octopus, lemongrass noodle soup and chamomile ile flottante and an essay on puffy foods.
“Everything is something that someone in their twenties could cook in a small apartment,” said Ms Valdesolo.
