I certainly don’t consider myself a foodie yet I felt pang when I read that Gourmet magazine was folding. It’s always a little shocking when something that has been a part of your life and that you feel a connection with dies unexpectedly…whether, as in my case, it’s a magazine, or for millions of people, a celebrity like Michael Jackson.

When I was about 10 years old, I can remember sitting on the couch and looking through Gourmet with my older sister, Carolyn.  She aspired to a more sophisticated style of cooking than the very basic meat-and-potatoes fare that our mother prepared. So when she found a recipe in Gourmet that appealed to her, she cut it out and filed it in a binder under the appropriate tab of soup, salad, appetizer, etc. And then at some point she would cook from the recipes; complicated directions and hard-to-find ingredients never stood in her way.

What I took away from that time with Carolyn was that if you really wanted to be someone who knew about food and entertaining, Gourmet was the essential magazine to read. So when I got married, I began subscribing to it. I pictured myself being the gracious hostess and using recipes from Gourmet for the many dinner parties we were going to have.

My image of evenings filled with luscious food, sophisticated cocktails, and witty conversation turned out to be more fantasy than reality. But even when our children were little and plain pasta and chicken tenders were standard fare, I still looked forward to Gourmet arriving in the mail each month. I would read it cover-to-cover and if I found a recipe I liked, particularly in Gastronomie Sans Argent, I would highlight it in the index with the hope of making it.

The lush Thanksgiving and Christmas issues were like a gift arriving in the mailbox. I loved looking at the tables set with layers-upon-layers of china and reading the recipes that required so many steps to make that a person would have to quit their job to be able to have time to make them. And the gorgeous cookies. I still have on my shelf the December 1992 issue that has the recipe for Biscotti De Greve. Page 164 of that issue is now very splattered and wrinkled; I’ve been making that recipe for biscotti to give as Christmas gifts for the past 17 years.

I had probably been subscribing to Gourmet for more than 20 years when I began noticing changes in it that were certainly the result of Ruth Reichl being hired as editor. The most obvious difference was that the photos in the magazine started to be staged with models. Previously, the photography that accompanied the recipes was only of food; people weren’t shown eating it.

Once the editors added people, the food was no longer the focus. Instead of looking at a gorgeous cake or beautifully plated meal, my eye was drawn to the models who were cast to set the scene. The photos that accompanied recipes for a child’s birthday party or a family gathering all looked so artificial and staged. They always seemed to be saying, “The setting is perfect, the food is perfect, we look perfect and we know it.”

When only the food was photographed, I could have the hope that if I made a particular recipe, my finished product would look as beautiful as the one in their photo. But now, there was no way I could ever measure up to the scene they had set.

It was enough of a turnoff that about two years ago I decided not to renew my subscription.

When I read in the Wall Street Journal article that Condé Nast Publications which owns Gourmet told its editors to only fly first class and stay in top hotels, the editorial attitude of the magazine began to make more sense to me. These people indeed felt privileged and that came through in the magazine. Gourmet’s motto of “Good Living” had become “Smug Living.” That’s not a quality that tends to keep readers.