I'm Not Rapoport

In the 1980's, a movie adaptation of a play called I'm Not Rappaport gained considerable popularity. Apparently, the title came from an old joke. Here's what I cut and pasted from our friends at Wikipedia:

"Its title comes from an old vaudeville joke, a variation of which evolved into dialogue between the two protagonists:

Nat: Hey, Rappaport! I haven't seen you in ages. How have you been?
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, what happened to you? You used to be a short fat guy, and now you're a tall skinny guy.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard, and now you're an old guy with a mustache.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, how has this happened? You used to be a cowardly little white guy, and now you're a big imposing black guy.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: And you changed your name, too!"

I give you all of this background in order to explain my thoughts on Bon Appetit magazine, now edited by Adam Rapoport. For years, when Gourmet magazine was still on the newsstands, I viewed Bon Appetit as the more seizable, housewife-y kid sister to Gourmet magazine. Gourmet had us flying the Concorde and eating regional delicacies on breathtaking cliffs above the Aegean. Gourmet afforded poor schlubs like me the ability to travel (virtually) like a first class member of some elite society of gourmands. Bon Appetit, on the other hand, explained how poor schlubs like me could cook a slightly Americanized version of some elevated foreign cuisine so we could put on a pretty nice dinner party. Bon Appetit did not have the same fantasy lifestyle element of Gourmet, but it was still an enjoyable enough read, and it was certainly filled with useful information.

When Conde Nast folded the pages of Gourmet in 2009, Bon Appetit was called to step up their game. I can imagine board meetings in which marketing experts probably stressed how important it would be for Bon Appetit to fill the fantasy lifestyle vacuum left by the now-defunct Gourmet. So they hired Rapoport, who was a cool, in-the-know tastemaker from GQ who could show us the modern way to live and eat. I imagine that Rapoprt's vision probably indicated that the latest and greatest lifestyle fantasy of the masses was to aspire to be (and eat like) a modern-day beatnik-style hipster.

I know a handful of modern-day beatnik-style hipsters and they're fine people. And the problem is not that a magazine is promoting a lifestyle of .1% of the American public. It's just promoting a lifestyle that doesn't resonate well as far as culinary pursuits go. It's not really stretching our imaginations at the table. Although the modern-day beatnik-style hipster may keep his own urban chickens and nobly rides his bicycle to the Farmers Market for the freshest local produce, what he cooks with his bounty is kind of, um, a little ho-hum.

Case in point: The February cover story of Rapoport's Bon Appetit was fried chicken and the March cover story is pizza (with a burnt crust, no less). While I love a good piece of fried chicken, I have to say that I want the cuisine I am reaching towards to be a little less pedestrian, even if the super-cool hipsters are eating it. While I am decrying Rapoport's extra-crispy drumstick cover shot, I am not insisting that he put Pheasant Under Glass on the cover of Bon Appetit...but how about his fried chicken with a Sauce Supreme? Sure, you and I know that it would basically be chicken and gravy, but throw in some asparagus tips and fine herbs and the reader can serve almost the same fried chicken to the most dignified guest. The reader would also reap the benefit of learning a new sauce.

As Rapoport's new generation of Bon Appetit magazine currently displays itself...well, I'm just "not feeling it", as his hipster demographic might say.