Cover Band

Every once in a while there’s a magazine cover that I can’t stop looking at. It’s provocative, risky, eye-catching – not your typical O: The Oprah Magazine cover with a curly-haired black woman laughing back at you, mouth gaping, eyes twinkling. It’s not your typical food magazine cover either, the sliced pie or the cross-sectioned sandwich overflowing with cheese, meat, some kind of heirloom tomato, and maybe a baby hydroponic lettuce. Sometimes, the magazines go out on a limb, and sometimes they hit a home run.

Today I received the September issue of Gourmet magazine and the cover of this month’s issue stopped me dead in my tracks.

It is GORGEOUS.

I’m not just saying this because it’s the “Paris on a Budget” issue and because my love of Paris, Parisians, Parisian food, etc, is more than well known, having lived there for a cumulative total of 11 months. I’m saying this because…well… it is GORGEOUS.

The photo, below, is a market stand in one of the fresh-air (plein-aire) markets on a typical Parisian street, with cardboard signs announcing the amount of each kilogram of whatever food it is. These stands are gorgeous, much like the food stands lining Main St. in Flushing, New York (which I recently visited, explored, and fell in love with).

The funny thing is, I JUST took a picture like this at one of the markets in New York, on the outskirts of SoHo called “The Garden of Eden.” I’ll post both the picture of the cover and the picture I took at the market side-by-side so it becomes more and more obvious to you why I should work at Gourmet in the future.

No. Seriously.