And the bullfighters’ rag lives on

Not just because it has been a great outlet for me for more years than I can remember, I was pretty sickened by Hachette’s whacking of Metropolitan Home. The editors there were savvy way before “sustainable” gained currency; the food features were never merely about chefs’ narcissism but about cooking with meaning. Twitterers mocking it obviously never read it. I found our Baggus in its pages and over the last two years have passed up thousands of plastic bags that would otherwise be clogging albatross guts (one B saves three to four flimsies at our neighborhood Food Shitty alone). MH had a sensibility like no other “shelter” magazine. Back when it was Apartment Living, I was a ridiculously loyal subscriber even while living in furnished studios. And I certainly never imagined the night would come when the result of my recipe would be projected on a big screen at the Four Seasons for an anniversary party where most people were as down-to-dirt as House & Garden was not. So this is sadder than the demise of Gourmet. Despondently pulling out my very battered copy of “New American Cuisine,” the faultless, still-relevant cookbook MH put out while under Meredith ownership, before Hachette engulfed and devoured, I had to wonder if anyone in publishing ever has second thoughts. Was there ever a man more aptly named than David Pecker?