Fall 2016 Letter from the Editor

When Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Ilene Bezahler announced she’d be launching a new magazine, To Market, and handed the reins of Edible Boston over to me as Managing Editor, I knew I had enormous shoes to fill. With her exceptional work over the past decade, she’s brought the stories of local food—and the people who make it—to life for hundreds of thousands of dedicated readers.

Ilene’s vision has helped make “farm-to-table” an expectation, not just for the highest-end restaurants, but for bakeries, cafés, fast food joints and even our own home kitchens. She’s highlighted farmers who struggle to acquire and keep their land, and fishermen who cope with ever-tightening regulations and a dwindling catch. Her writers have profiled food rescue operations, issues of food access, climate change, food deserts and political movements to change these injustices. Under her tutelage, up-and-coming journalists have written about local food history, technology and innovation, and her regular columnists have brought us stories of urban farming, modern mixology, home brewing, cheesemaking and so much more.

The Boston area’s food community has Ilene—and Edible Boston—to thank for the resurgence of interest in buying local and supporting our state’s burgeoning agriculture. I am grateful to call her my mentor and friend, and hope to live up to her extraordinary example in my new role.

The new To Market, headed up by longtime Edible Boston and Boston Globe contributor Andrea Pyenson, will focus on New England as a regional food system with Boston as its hub. Here at Edible Boston, we’ll turn our attention a bit more inward. We will still bring you the stories of local food producers and growers, but our main emphasis will be on home cooking, gardening, preserving and raising your own food, along with profiles of local food heroes, delicious recipes and the same stunning photography you’ve come to love.

In my role as Recipe Editor over the past several years my motivation was to encourage simple home cooking made with the best local ingredients available. Through personal stories, un-fussy recipes, humorous anecdotes and beautiful imagery, we’ll continue this effort in the newly revamped Edible Boston. With To Market as its sibling publication, Ilene and the rest of our fantastic team will bring you a full complement of New England food stories, with roots here in Boston, for many decades to come.

In this issue, look for a round-up of Ilene’s dad’s favorite Boston-area croissants, as well as recipes for cooking oysters at home and using up Thanksgiving leftovers. There are two fascinating interviews: One with a former governor and the other with a preeminent chef and restaurateur. We’ve got school—and office—lunch taken care of by the experts at Cutty’s, and two pies that’ll have you forgetting all about apples and pumpkins.

Happy fall!

Sarah Blackburn

MANAGING EDITOR