Romantics know the simple phrase — three little words — has spawned songs of love. But whether that formula can help a marriage proposed last week between Time Inc.’s magazines and Meredith’s titles is anyone’s guess.
Time’s cover trick to help newsstand appeal of some of its titles is to slap a three-word summary beneath a magazine’s masthead, smartly summing up what it’s all about.
For the Time Inc. shelter title, Real Simple, the explanatory phrase is, “Life Made Simple,” and so forth at other titles. Real Simple is indeed true to its mission. Its stark cover spread offers, “Back-to-Basics Beauty,” while urging pasta meals on weeknights and suggesting, “Five Crucial Questions To Ask Your Aging Parents,” e.g. “Have you thought about long-term-care insurance?”
The magazine is impressively simple, sweet and as strictly uncluttered as a Zurich streetscape. Sometimes we wish graphics slaves would just color outside the lines for a bit of excitement.
Meeting its step-sister shelter title at Des Moines, Iowa-based Meredith — Better Homes and Gardens — is akin to the tale of the city mouse meeting the country mouse. About the only thing in common between Real Simple and Better Homes is an identical two-page Target ad spread appearing in each, with Real Simple gaining an additional, similar two-page Target spread.
Like a country farm menu, Better Homes’ food articles are also very down to earth, e.g., a recipe for “Bacon & Egg Spaghetti,” which is just that, lumped together.
Real Simple’s take on simple pasta: Gemelli al dente, arugula, pepperoncini, feta cheese and deveined shrimp. Meanwhile, in addition to Better Homes’ other chunky recipes of potato, cabbage and sausage fare, is a great gardening spread on how to make your front yard into a country wildflower garden that never needs mowing. If these two titles somehow unite, readers will likely be left with just one simple house mouse that roared.
We like the bite-sized, fast-paced, breezy approach of EveryDay with Rachael Ray. The photos are sharp, the recipes are focused on budget pricing and on ease of use. The “18 Things to Do with Chicken,” insert is a keeper but don’t slap a piece on battery-powered purses or best green-hued cosmetics for St. Patrick’s Day in the middle of all that.
It goes down like a fishbone. Makes sense that the magazine comes from Meredith, the home of down-to-earth titles that are embraced by Middle America. We won’t be snotty. There’s a lot to love about this idea-packed title including the ways to cook with Irish stout Guinness; braised beef and cupcakes, and “Meatloaf 10 Ways.”
But MediaCity doesn’t have time for snooze-worthy pieces that ask “What kind of shopper are you?” or questions for the Food Truck vendor, nor do we wish to transform a throw pillow or mimic Rachael’s scary concert-going look. Let’s stick to the food.
Cooking Light, from Time Inc., is much less busy in its presentation. It offers a more upscale but not inaccessible view of food (its tagline is “Life lived deliciously’) such as best wines with chicken and nutritional advice on avoiding salt at the supermarket. Given the title, there’s many a recipe aimed at cutting down on fat and sugar in as many unique ways as possible. A Tiramisu dessert with low-fat cream cheese rather than mascarpone. We think it wouldn’t go down well in Iowa, Meredith HQ.
It’s official: Ed Koch died 18 days ago, and the New Yorker still has yet to mention this fact in its pages. If he’s looking down at the newsstands today, we’re guessing Ed isn’t too upset, given the fact there’s a documentary about him playing in the movie houses now.
Still, it will be at least 25 days after his death at the age of 88 before Ed gets another shot to at least make “The Talk of the Town,” which this week was too busy with Marco Rubio, China’s economy, The Metropolitan Opera and Patricia Cornwell.
Elsewhere, the time-insensitive magazine was immersed in Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, Spain’s economy and French movie star Gerard Depardieu’s tax problems.
Time runs a cover story that likens Pope Benedict to King Arthur, calling him “The Once and Future Pope.” But the better analogy for Time’s argument might be from Star Wars: In stepping down from the papacy, Joseph Ratzinger, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
While we’re no experts on the politics inside the Vatican, we’re not sure it’s a cinch that whoever succeeds Benedict will be his patsy.
Elsewhere, the mag does what it can to shove a nail in the coffin of the Pentagon’s $400 billion F-35 fighter jet program, which it calls “the costliest weapons program in human history.
“There’s always this sexual drive for a new airplane on the part of each service,” explains Tom Christie, the Pentagon’s former chief weapons tester. “Persistent, urgent and natural.”