BACK IN MY urban days, even after I had kids, Halloween was really an excuse for a bunch of adult friends to get together. We’d costume up our toddlers, sure. We let them walk around one block, before dark, collecting whatever candy they could from whichever adults happened to be home early from work, and then: We fed them mac ‘n cheese while we feasted. It was always  a spirited fall potluck: maybe Chris‘ heavenly beef stew, some sides, a great salad, pie…it was perfect. My annual potluck contribution was a recipe I adapted from one Nigella Lawson ran in the New York Times for a baked and stuffed pumpkin, the inside full of spiced and fruited rice. I added ground lamb and a smidge of cumin to the mix, at least some years, and the result was always well-received both for flavor and beauty.

I was all set to make that dish again this Halloween, even though those fabulous Halloween potlucks are long since past, when I turned up at a friend’s for dinner this weekend. She’d invited us to bring our kids along, though her son is grown, and cooked things she thought the kids would embrace. Meatloaf? Yep. Salad? Maybe. Plum cake? Of course. But the dish she was most delighted by, one she was sure they’d embrace, my little rats snubbed entirely. Ah, well. More for us. Though I love my baked stuffed pumpkin, this Gourmet recipe, in all its unaltered glory, is utterly sublime. Not for the carb-phobic or faint of heart, it is special, and worth the indulgence it undoubtedly is.

Roast Pumpkin with Cheese “Fondue”
From Gourmet Magazine (R.I.P.)

Serves 8 (main course) or 12 (side dish

1 (15-inch) piece of baguette, cut into 1/2-inch slices (7 oz total)
1 (7-lb) orange pumpkin
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
2 1/2 cups coarsely grated Gruyère (6 oz)
2 1/2 cups coarsely grated Emmental (6 oz)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in lower third.

Toast baguette slices in 1 layer on a baking sheet in oven until tops are crisp (bread will still be pale), about 7 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Remove top of pumpkin by cutting a circle (3 inches in diameter) around stem with a small sharp knife. Scrape out seeds and any loose fibers from inside pumpkin with a spoon (including top of pumpkin; reserve seeds for another use if desired). Season inside of pumpkin with 1/2 tsp salt.

Whisk together cream, broth, nutmeg, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in a bowl. Mix together cheeses in another bowl.

Put a layer of toasted bread in bottom of pumpkin, then cover with about 1 cup cheese and about 1/2 cup cream mixture. Continue layering bread, cheese, and cream mixture until pumpkin is filled to about 1/2 inch from top, using all of cream mixture. (You may have some bread and cheese left over.)

Cover pumpkin with top and put in an oiled small roasting pan. Brush outside of pumpkin all over with olive oil. Bake until pumpkin is tender and filling is puffed, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.

Pumpkin can be filled 2 hours before baking and chilled.

FALL FEST IS A cross-blog recipe (and tip) swap–and you’re invited to participate. Simply post your link or recipe or idea in the comments below my post, and also on the blogs of the other participants listed here. Want more information? Get the details (and the schedule for upcoming weeks). My collaborators’ goodies:

• Gilded Fork: Butternut Squash Bisque with Nutmeg Crème Fraîche
• Caroline at the Wright Recipes: Roasted Pumpkin and Winter Squash with Labneh and Skhug
• Alana at Eating From the Ground Up: Fall Vegetable Chicken Pot Pie
• Alison at Food2: Pumpkin Donuts
• Toby at Healthy Eats: Pumpkin 5 Ways (Including Seed-Studded Pumpkin Bread)
• Kirsten at Food Network: Best Pumpkin Recipes
• Michelle at Cooking Channel: Pumpkin and Squash Recipes
• Food Network UK: Praise the Gourd
• Cate at Sweetnicks: Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Butter
• Caron at San Diego Foodstuff: Clay Pot Winter Squash

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I WAS IN MY LOCAL bookstore last week, when a gorgeous green tome caught my grieving eye: the new Gourmet Today cookbook. Despite my snarky reaction to the “Free offer inside!” sticker on the cover (the offer is a free subscription to Gourmet magazine–don’t get me started, Condé Nast) I had to buy it.

At around 1,000 pages, there’s enough here to keep a heartbroken Gourmet reader busy for months, and though many of the recipes are ones I recognize as favorites from recent issues of the magazine, others appear to be original to the book, making it worthwhile for even a disciplined Gourmet saver. So far I’ve made a fantastic Brussels sprout salad, delicious black bean burritos and a wonderful chocolate banana cake.

Best of all, I’ve shifted my focus from sad gazes at the old magazines on my shelf to the fun of trying new recipe from a trusted source. Though the book lacks the sumptuous photography of the magazine (it’s illustrated with line drawings) I like the simplicity of the design; there’s nothing to distract from the excellent writing and (thus far) foolproof recipes.

Have you tried it yet? What are you cooking?

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image from the new thankyougourmet.com

YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW I FEEL about the end of Gourmet. But let me be clear: Unlike many mainstream media outlets that covered this story, I don’t blame food bloggers. I love food blogs, and what I glean from their shiny digital pages is totally different than what I sought in Gourmet‘s glossy ones. So with my favorite food mag now history, I find myself seeking comfort from fellow foodies and passionate cooks. If you, too, need some emotional sustenance during these dark days, be sure to check out these sites, which are full of the vibrant joy of cooking well for yourself and others.

Shauna of Gluten Free Girl

One of our early profiles, one of my favorite online foodies, Shauna is a bundle of love and joy and can make you feel instantly better, about everything, at the click of a key. Read this, and see if you don’t believe me.

Marilyn of Simmer Till Done

Marilyn was one of my first new digital sisters after the launch of TSP, and I treasure her writing, her recipes, her sense of humor, and our frizzy-haired kinship. She let me write for her once. She even wrote for us once. And she makes scones. I LOVE scones.

Julie of A Mingling of Tastes

Julie’s having a special celebration of Gourmet this week, a great addition to her regular line up of simple, accessible recipes like grilled pizza and shepherd’s pie. And she’s from my hometown, Chicago, which makes her extra special.

Aran of Cannelle et Vanille

Hands-down, one of the most gorgeous food blogs around. Seasonal, special and always inventive, Aran’s recipes are unique and beautiful. And she makes marzipan ice cream–what could be better?

Matt of MattBites

One of the SummerFest crew, Matt is funny as can be, loves cocktails as much as carnitas, and is a master when it comes to styling and photographing his culinary triumphs.

Julie of Dinner with Julie

Julie, another thanks-to-TSP digital sister, describes her site as “a sort of reality cookbook” which it is, if your reality includes things like Pumpkin Stout Gingerbread with Cream Cheese Frosting. (Thanks to Julie, that will soon be part of my reality, too.)

Dorie of In the Kitchen and On the Road with Dorie

Yes, Dorie Greenspan. Yes, she writes for that other food magazine, but we won’t hold that against her, since she’s a goddess of baking, and a wonderful storyteller.

Luisa of The Wednesday Chef

I’ve never met Luisa, never corresponded with her, make no claim to sisterhood at all–but hers was the first food blog I ever read, and I love her. Read her, and you will, too.

Elana of Elana’s Pantry

Another profilee, another home of gluten-free goodness, with a healthy dash of environmental consciousness thrown in for all our good measure. Don’t know about you, I can’t wait to drown some sorrow in these Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Heidi of 101 Cookbooks

Now that Gourmet’s Cookbook Club is kaput, I’ll be extra reliant on Heidi’s savvy book picks, not to mention her elegant vegetarian recipes. I’ve been dying to make this Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash.

Gwen of Pen and Fork

I found Chef Gwen thanks to Twitter, and love her accounts of her dining experiences (don’t miss her luscious photographs of the legendary roast chicken at San Francisco’s Zuni Café) and her simple, original recipes, often with a southwestern flavor.

and…Renee of thankyougourmet.com

Finally, a special shout-out to the lovely writer Renee Schettler, who was inspired to create a site where we can say “thank you” to Gourmet for all it’s given readers over the years. Renee was kind enough to include my remembrances of Gourmet, and I hope you’ll visit the site and add yours to the list. (The image above is from her beautifully designed thankyougourmet.com. Be sure to check it out.)

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IHAD TO BREAK the news to my mother last night. A huge player in our shared history was gone. Her face went white, and she looked like she might cry. As we sat down to dinner (a dish I re-christened Cold Comfort Chicken Potpie) she looked down. “I just can’t believe it’s gone.” She was talking, of course, about Gourmet magazine.

As long as I can remember, Gourmet was a fixture in my home, and hers. It cluttered my mother’s kitchen and her nightstand, but every issue, no matter how dogeared, was carefully saved. Mom was not just a loyal subscriber, she was a true believer.

When she moved from North Carolina to California eight years ago, to be near her first grandchild (that would be the River, beautiful boy of mine), Mom started cleaning out her basement and garage, and the first of several boxes arrived at my house, things she couldn’t rationalize keeping, but couldn’t bear to see us without.

Included were many of the 40-odd volumes of bound back issues of Gourmet, dating back to 1943, the magazine’s third year. The blue-bound tomes now line the shelves in my dining room; the first time I (nervously) cooked dinner for editor Ruth Reichl, she looked around, smiling, and said that it looked a lot like the Gourmet library.

Somewhere in my basement, awaiting excavation from the towers of boxes and cartons that arrived with my mother when she moved in with me last March, is a letter written to me in 1973 or 1974. That year, I’d become immersed in the Pippi Longstocking books. An avid reader, I could handle the books occasionally awkward, translated-from-the-Swedish phrasing. But I was mystified by pepparkakor. It was clearly some kind of cookie–but what kind, exactly? In those pre-Internet days, I had two choices to solve the mystery: a trip to the reference librarian at the Chattanooga Public Library, or a letter to “You Asked For It.”

“You Asked For It” was my favorite section of Gourmet. Readers wrote in, asking the editors to please, PLEASE, intercede with the God of Fancy Restaurants to procure the recipe for the Roquefort Cheese Soufflée enjoyed while on vacation in St. Maarten, or the God of Long-Lost Recipes in hopes of acquiring the definitive method for making Iced Tea Cakes. Month after month, the editors came through. My mother knew that if anyone could not only solve the mystery of pepparkakor, but provide the best and most thorough response, it would be Mr. Mac (aka Earle MacAusland, the magazine’s original editor, who served from 1941 to 1980) and his crack staff.

Indeed, MacAusland and his elves answered, and how. The enthusiastic letter charmed even a cookie-focused 8-year-old, and along with much encouragement for a young girl to keep on cooking, those kind magazine people included a sheaf of annotated recipes and a veritable treatise on gingersnaps. As it turned out, I didn’t like pepparkakor nearly as much as Pippi did, but no matter. Like my mother, I was turned into a lifelong Gourmet devotée.

That’s not to say we were without perspective: In the 80s, we wondered at the magazine’s future, as it seemed more inclined toward high end (read: out of our reach) travel than culinary exploration. But as it shifted back to a more balanced perspective, we were reassured.

You can imagine, then, maybe, the anxiety and excitement I felt when, over the last few years, I got to know and befriend the impossibly lovely Ruth Reichl, the current, and, it appears, final, editor of my favorite magazine. As background: I used to work in Hollywood. I’ve met my share of people who are actually important, and many more who just think they are. Movie stars don’t make me nervous. Meeting Ruth for the first time? Much to my husband’s amusement, I was a mess. Luckily, Ruth is kind, and patient, and our friendship survived my initial butterflies.

Yesterday, I heard the news of Gourmet‘s closing from another friend, also a former editor at Gourmet. I was really shaken. Not only because I felt terrible for Ruth, whose passion for the magazine is profound, and whose devotion to the betterment of food for the benefit of the planet is consuming, but, frankly, for what Gourmet‘s demise means for all of us, for American culture, and arts, and letters, and yes, cooking. My mother said, as she stood stunned in the kitchen when I told her, “This is a terrible thing. For America. For American culture.” I couldn’t disagree.

There are other food magazines I read and enjoy, but none, for me, combined perfect recipes (tested until they worked, every time), excellent writing, and a deep sense of the importance of cooking and food to our communities, our heritage and our health. Gourmet was unique. Gourmet was relevant. Gourmet was a part of my family’s cooking experience, for more than 43 years. Thank you, Gourmet. For me and my mom, without you, cooking will never be quite the same.

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