20 Jul Everything Old is New Again
You might notice that something is different. Or if you’ve been with us a while, you might notice that something looks familiar.
You are correct.
In 2005, this site started as the The Gilded Fork. When we launched, I was so proud, because I had spent months trying to come up with a name that was just right. After countless hours of wordsmithing and brain stretching, I jumped out of a dead sleep and yelled “The Gilded Fork!” It encompassed everything I wanted to capture in a food site — the simple elevated to elegance. Bleary-eyed, I ran to my computer and checked the domain — as luck would have it, the domain was available, and I grabbed it.
Chef Mark joined me (and a gaggle of gourmands) to embark upon our road of passionate culinary discovery, and we happily continued that way until we discovered something very…strange. A week after I purchased the domain, someone filed for a trademark under Gilded Fork. Coincidence? We may never know. But it resulted in much hand-wringing — and a meltdown or two on my part — as we deliberated about what to do. Ultimately, we knew the time may come when, despite the fact that we had the name first, we might have to give it up. So rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars to fight, we switched everything over to Culinary Media Network except for our Gilded Fork Gourmet Boutique, and decided to let things be what they would. Writing that now, it sounds so easy, but it was a very tough thing for us to do.
It turns out that time was on our side, however. The trademark application was abandoned, and we grabbed it that very day. We announced the Gilded Fork: Entertaining at Home cookbook the next day.
We missed our name. Terribly. It so very succinctly speaks to who we are, and how we approach food, and we are ecstatic to have it on our masthead once again. In the coming months we are revamping lots of things here on the site, including a new virtual test kitchen we can’t wait to share with you, and an expanded repertoire of culinary classes both online and off. For now, you can see online courses like Chef Mark’s Knife Skills 101 in our renamed Gilded Fork Cooking School.
There’s no need to worry about your feed settings, as we’ve dealt with all that under the hood (thanks to our wonderful hosting provider/sys admin/fixer of things Jennifer breaks at fooMG). If you do notice anything wonky, please leave a comment here, or shoot a note to us at info [at] gildedfork [dot] com.
It has been a long and sometimes difficult road, but we are delighted to share our Gilded selves with you once again. There will be some shifts in things going forward, and we need to go through and finalize all our name-changes, like our Facebook page and Twitter handle, but we’ll share those with you as we go. And another cookbook will be coming in the next 12 months.
That’s all I’m allowed to say right now, or Chef Mark and Madeline will be on me like a bee on lavender, so I’ll hush now. But welcome to our (old) new home! Pull up a seat while we pour you a glass of bubbly.