Winter 2018 Editor's Letter
Late November, 2017
I love this time of year, the calm before the storm, that lovely quiet stretch between fall and winter. We’re still making our way through the Thanksgiving remnants—turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey croquettes, turkey, turkey, turkey. Sure, there are celebrations to plan, wreaths and garlands to order, cards to design and lists to make, but none of that starts in my house until December; the sugar-plum hustle-bustle lies blissfully in the future, and for the moment, all is calm.
One after another holiday editions of the national magazines arrive in my mailbox, dressed up for the season with ribbons and bows. And just like every year, they’re practically bursting with good spirit, full to the brim with comfort and joy. These are aspirational glossies, glamorous and sophisticated spreads of tenderloin and foie, Champagne and caviar—produced months ago and far away on studio sets draped with evergreens and gold. After a remarkable and somewhat stressful year, doesn’t everyone just want to crank the carols, bake some cookies and dive head first into the holidays? Flipping through these festive issues takes my mind off the nonsense, gets me primed for the parties and puts me in a celebratory mood—so bring on the bubbly!
As beautiful and inspiring as these monthlies are, what we offer you at the holidays is a different sort of magazine. It’s a locally focused journal you’ll use far beyond December and into the coldest months, with recipes and feature stories that speak to your New England wintertime experience. Travel with us to a new North Shore bakery and take the chill off with locally made Argentinian specialties. Escape into an Indian food memoir, spicing up your kitchen with a vegetarian dinner inspired by tropical Bombay. Maybe you’ll even take a weekend to try your hand at my seeded multigrain bread—or find some new love for the lowly turnip and rutabaga.
In our pages you’ll learn about a local baker’s ingenious recycling effort, turning spent brewery grains into crunchable, snackable crackers. Take some time to delve into Steve Holt’s study of community “group-think” for local food entrepreneurs and savor his profile of a trio of friends and their new Everett-based distillery. Use Louisa Kasdon’s book recommendations to make your holiday gifting list infinitely easier, then read our next installment of hidden restaurants and a first person account of a cold water sea urchin dive. And we’re privileged to include national food advocate Marion Nestle’s inspirational advice on how we can do more in our own communities to promote a good, clean, fair food system, wherever we are. This issue has something for everyone. Read it cover to cover.
In this season of thanksgiving, we’re so grateful for you, our readers, who have been with us for 48 issues since our launch in 2006. Now in our 12th year publishing, we’re turning to you, asking for your help to keep our publication robust and our mission alive. Producing a high-quality magazine season after season (and giving it away free, for all to read) has never been easy; for more than a decade we’ve relied on small businesses and their generous advertising dollars to just barely squeak by. But as free social media platforms become easier to use, they’ve driven many independent small businesses away from print advertising. By changing our business structure to become a nonprofit (The Food Voice) we’re now able to keep our publication broadly distributed—and for free—through a combination of business sponsorships and reader support. We hope you’ll think of us in your end-of-year financial planning: Give a subscription to a friend, family member or even yourself, and know that your financial support will help us bring you the local food stories and seasonal recipes you love into 2018 and beyond.
And from everyone at Edible Boston and The Food Voice, we wish you a healthy and happy holiday season!
Sarah Blackburn
