Summer 2020

Sorry that your summer issue of Edible Door is out later than usual this year but, if you haven’t noticed, things have been happening. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken things up a bit. Well, actually a lot, and unfortunately, it isn’t finished.

Consequently, we delayed the summer issue by just over a month to allow us to fully distribute the spring issue and hopefully let our beloved advertisers gain some traction. That move will delay our fall issue also by a month.

But circumstances surrounding the virus have actually drawn the Edible Communities publishers somewhat closer. A weekly Zoom meeting has prompted discussions on how to navigate this strange new publishing landscape.

I am not a fully compliant Zoom participant, since I refuse to activate the camera on my computer. By the time this column hits the press and you pick up a copy, there’s a good chance I still won’t have gotten a haircut. My wife, Leslie, really seems to like the longer silvery hair that is beginning to reach the lengths of my college days, although considerably thinner.

And, as you’ll see in this issue, these Zoom meetings have created a new product that you may fi nd particularly appealing.

Edible Communities has launched a digital cookbook for sale fi lled with recipes. Proceeds from the sale will aid publishers in their efforts to remain alive and bolster their efforts to promote their particular area’s local food scene.

It’s another step into the world of digital publishing, a world that I admit has been a diffi cult one for me to adjust to.

No realm of publishing has faced the skirmish between print and digital quite like food and particularly recipes.

For people who like to cook, often there is satisfaction in knowing that you have a signifi cant collection of recipe books to draw from. Leslie has a section of her pantry set aside for just such publications.

It’s not that she uses a lot of them. She has a particular collection of recipes that she regularly uses and is within easy reach. But there’s something about an old, seldom-used recipe book that is just as good for the soul as grandma’s apple pie.

Each book has a history, many of them tied to family and memories of the meals you enjoyed as a youngster around the family dinner table.

Leslie has one that’s in German which has obviously outlived its usefulness but contains little treasures like a letter (in English) from a Chicago alderman in the early 1920s thanking his constituents for their support. Leslie’s grandmother didn’t keep the letter for political reasons but for a recipe’s ingredients she scribbled in the top corner of what was the nearest piece of paper.

Other books are the famous church cookbooks that contain familiar names that are no longer with us. Others are just famous for their names, whether it is a Pillsbury collection of recipes or another from Good Housekeeping. But there is something about the printed word, particularly when it conveys a signifi cant piece of literature or a remarkable recipe, that just can’t be conveyed digitally.

This is not meant to diminish the quality of Edible’s new recipe collection, for it effectively takes advantage of digital format by weaving video presentations and podcasts into its content.

Clearly, this is an enhanced recipe book, one that will become all the more commonplace in the 21st century.

But don’t ever give away your grandmother’s books and, please, look through them now and again to find her handwritten notes or changes. They were meant for you.

Jon Gast 
Co-Owner/Editor of Edible Door