Dear Readers,

If you opened the newsletter on Tuesday, you may have seen the news: we are currently being sued by Condé Nast over the use of the Gourmet name.

We can’t really comment on the case, since we’re in litigation and have been for months. But we can share some basic facts, and we’d like to make a request:

We are an independent co-op of five part-time writers and editors with no investors. What we lack in resources, we hope to make up with a great deal of affection for good food and good writing — but lawyers, we have discovered, do not accept payment in affection for good food or good writing.

If you’ve enjoyed any of the features and recipes we’ve published since launching in January (municipal canteens! Palestinian malfouf! strawberry cream cake! $1,246 peanut butter!), if you’ve shared them with a friend, or if you simply want to support small shops with big ambitions, we need your support. Please subscribe today, and encourage your friends to do the same.

We’ve heard from a number of current paid subscribers asking how they can help, too. The simplest way is to upgrade your subscription by a notch, buy a gift subscription for a friend, or get in touch with us directly if you’d like to make a larger contribution.

We truly love running this magazine, and we love hearing from all of you on a daily basis about your favorite dishes, memories of great meals, and mysteries of the food universe you’d like us to solve.

Now here’s a little story:

The great French gourmand Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, in his seminal Physiologie du goût, recounts a journey during the worst days of the Reign of Terror, when he set out from his home in the Jura on his horse named la Joie to seek a document that could save him from execution. He arrived at an inn on the way, hungry from the ride, and his heart leapt to see a spit laden with quail, gamebirds, and a choice rabbit sizzling over the fire. He quickly learned, however, that the meal was not on the menu—in fact it was for a private party—but he refused to be disappointed. He asked the innkeeper to ask the celebrants if they might allow him to share their meal. After a tense wait, he was informed that they’d be delighted to have him at their table.

The meal was fantastic, starting with a chicken fricassée piled with truffles and ending with excellent fruits, cheeses, and a vanilla cream, accompanied by a light red, a fine Burgundy, and finally some vin de Paille, Jura's prized golden-yellow dessert wine. But the roast game that had first caught his eye, he writes, was the best part of the meal, since “it was cooked perfectly, and the difficulty that I had overcome to reach it only served to heighten its flavor again.” 

Thank you,
The Gourmet Editors