The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age

And so we enter the Gilded Age.

As we celebrate the relaunch of Gastronomic Meditations as The Gilded Fork™, we can look back at a year that has been a rollercoaster ride of food and wine adventure; what began as a personal food blog has become a voluminous collection of food and wine writing, recipes, ethereal musings, and passionate discourse on the sensual pleasures of cuisine.

Now, tens of thousands of readers visit our pages each month from all corners of the world — and many of you have taken the time to share your own passions with us. To know that we have fellow gourmands on this journey to satiation is both thrilling and compelling, as we see that our yearnings and thoughts mirror many of yours.

Some of you have asked for a more detailed explanation of the meaning behind our new name, and I’m delighted to expand upon my initial announcement. In choosing an appropriate title, we wanted to capture the essence of our mission here: to examine the realm of food and wine at its roots, and to elevate simple pleasures to a place of honor, where flavor, fragrance, and texture can be celebrated fervently, but without snobbery. In a phrase, we wish to gild the essentials with the strength of our passion for them. So the imagery of a fork — a simple, but necessary tool — accented with sumptuous detail, captures this ideal.

Of course, some may think we are referring to “gilding the lily” (adding superfluousness and pretense); however, there is more than one definition for the word: The one we have embraced speaks of richness in quality.

For the coming year we have plans to bring this sumptuous approach to an even higher level, but that is for a later editorial; right now we are kicking things off with some new features to delight your senses:

– At last, our Holiday Boutique is open, and resplendent with exclusive gifts of food and wine that can only be found here. You can shop the boutique by category or price, with free shipping through December 18th.

– We have launched the Artisan’s Corner, where the purveyors who craft products that evoke all sorts of swooning will share their musings with us. Our debut piece is from Laurie Alexiev, who is responsible for the gorgeous Tuscan-style olive oil in our boutique. I could bathe in this golden liquid — and I mean that quite literally.

In addition, we have chosen our favorite recipes from 2005 to help with your holiday festivities. Our celebration of truffles has been moved to December, so look for those musings and recipes later in the month.

All of the articles and archives from Gastronomic Meditations™ are now housed here as well, so you can simply change the bookmark in your browser and find everything at www.culinarymedianetwork.com.

Lastly, I could not let the season pass without crafting what has become a holiday tradition for me: a Night Before Christmas poem regaling a tale of potential kitchen disaster averted. (Hogwarts isn’t the only place with kitchen elves.) I even recorded an audio version this year for posterity.

We hope you enjoy all of our holiday musings, and as you gather with your friends and family to celebrate this joyous time of year, we wish you a season of warmth and happiness, with an abundance of decadent treats to fulfill your every food fantasy.

Happy Holidays!