Eating and Publishing at Home

By Emily Esterson, 10-11-07

Sometimes, startup companies luck out: they land at the convergence of not one, but two trends. In the case of Edible Communities, a for-profit publishing entity launched in Ojai, Calif., but now based in Santa Fe, the local food movement caught on just as hyper local publishing seems to be replacing broader, general circulation magazines and newspapers.

Edible Communities runs a bit like a franchise; you pay to purchase the design, plus year-long support from the company. Marian Burros wrote about Edible Communities in the New York Times in August, noting that the buy in is $30,000, with an additional $60,000 paid out over five years. The magazines focus on local agriculture, slow food, local sourcing and the restaurant scene, although each publisher and editor is left pretty much to their own devices to determine the content.

Kimball Worcester, director of operations for Edible Communities, says the deal is actually a licensing arrangement, rather than a franchise. “People get a lot of support for the first year,” she says. About 4 million copies of Edible ____(fill in the city/region) are being distributed, and by the end of the year she’s expecting 60 cities will have their own Edibles. Edible Missoula is coming soon—imminent, Worcester says—while Edible Front Range (for the Denver Metro area) is also in the works.

I first ran into Edible Santa Fe when my friend Myra, who owns Slate Street Cafe, handed me a copy during dinner at her restaurant. As a journalist with an interest in local food sourcing, she figured I should see it. Indeed, I found it a lot more interesting than a couple of the other food magazines floating around the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area. Myra, for her part, makes it a point to find local sources for her menu, as do many other restaurateurs around the west. Some actually advertise their suppliers on their menus. Edible appears to be at the juncture of what is surely the ”new organic.” Local sourcing, we’ve learned, is probably more important than organic, although to incorporate both is the current food ideal.

No doubt, the way we think about food changes with the world economic and socio-political climate.  Alar apples scared us into organic, RgBH hormones made us crave non-fussed with milk. Gas prices spiked and suddenly living off locally grown rutabagas in February didn’t seem like a bad option. So, too, have our reading habits changed drastically over the past decade. With so many sources of information available, we’re searching out more regionally and locally connected content (New West, I believe, is an example of this as well).  Such localized food writing has always been at the forefront of the foodie magazines’ content, but how can knowing the goat cheese is made in Napa and served in Napa restaurants help me, in Albuquerque? Here, the founders of Edible Communities seem to get what broader foodie publishing outfits frequently miss. I want to eat at home.