Every Monday night, Bon Appétit editor in chief Adam Rapoport gives us a peek inside his brain by taking over our newsletter. He shares recipes he's been cooking, restaurants he's been eating at, and more. It gets better: If you sign up for our newsletter, you'll get this letter before everyone else.
Ever since editors have been writing editor’s letters, editors have been turning them in late. We’ve got too much on our plates, we tell our colleagues. Too many meetings. No time to write. And whatever other excuses we can drum up to explain our lack of productivity.
When I should’ve been writing my editor’s letter for the May issue, the lot of us were at 1 World Trade Center, clicking away on our laptops, dipping into the BA Test Kitchen to make espressos and nibble at whatever was set out on the tasting table. In other words, we were going to work—which is what everyone was doing, right?
But when I (finally) sat down to write it, it was Thursday, March 19. I was at home, having just logged off of yet another Zoom meeting. Simone, Marlon, and I were on Day 6 of self-isolation due to the coronavirus. Now, as I type this weekly newsletter to you on April 20, that May issue has finally arrived in print. Here’s what I wrote, one month ago today:
It’s hard to imagine how we’ll all be doing by the time you read this letter mid-April. We know things are going to get worse before they get better. And that’s difficult to process.
But I also know that I’m incredibly heartened by how everyone on the BA team has responded to this crisis. We have figured out on the fly how to reinvent our jobs as we work remotely. We’re now filming our wildly popular YouTube videos in our own apartments, selfie style. We’re recording our podcast without a studio but with just as much enthusiasm, opinion, and yes, spirited bickering. We’ve banded together to raise funds for and call attention to a restaurant industry that has been decimated this past month.
And yes, we’re still making a magazine. All of the content in our May issue was shot, written, and edited before COVID-19 turned our lives upside down. It was supposed to have been our Travel Issue. But as my boss, Anna Wintour, pointed out, perhaps splashing the word TRAVEL across the cover in all caps right now might not be the move. Hard to argue with her. But the stories behind the cover still shine. The recipes from Minneapolis’s Union Hmong Kitchen—which, by the way, were some of the best things we’ve tested all year—will be a boon to every home cook in America. Same with chef Ashleigh Shanti’s breakfast indulgences at Benne on Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina. And as the weather warms, I recommend trying Andy Baraghani’s easy-breezy produce-driven dishes that he cooked up last summer during an Ojai escape.
Really, what we all need now more than ever is escape. I hope this Recipes to Transport You issue can provide just that. At the moment, turn to it for cooking advice and inspiration. Dog-ear the recipes you’re aching to make. And when it’s finally time for all of us to break free, use this issue as we originally intended it—as your all-caps guide to TRAVEL.