From the Publisher and Editor

Early Spring 2012

The issue you hold in your hands represents a small bi-monthly miracle. The same can be said for any print magazine these days—but especially our lean little enterprise, especially in a down economy.  The small businesses who advertise with us (and the large ones, for that matter) feel the same economic pinch we all feel, but they know a few things. First, you love and, from what you tell us when we meet you at farmers markets and wine tastings, hoard each issue of Flavor. Second, you support a sustainable and sane food system in a tangible way—by buying directly from farmers and ranchers and businesses whose practices you support, many of whom you learn about in these pages.

We can’t produce the magazine without our advertisers…so as Jerry Maquire once said: help us help you. Patronize the businesses in these pages. Visit their websites and stores, and tell them how you learned about them. Like them on Facebook. Let them know you appreciate the role they play in producing every issue of Flavor, and in revolutionizing the way we all eat.

You know that Occupy Wall Street “human mic” thing?  Where the speaker says a few words and the crowd up close chants it right after, so the people in back can hear? We’d love it if you’d do the same for us. Please subscribe to our Twitter feed (it’s all useful stuff, no brain droppings) and retweet what appeals to you (or, you know, everything). Be our human mic. Amplify the voices of the farmers and the food artisans and vintners, distillers, and brewers who fill our pages. The only way small businesses that are taking on entrenched powers in the industrial food system will succeed— that includes this magazine in your hands—is when you become the messenger, too.

Thank you, as always, for reading Flavor.  We are grateful every day that this is our job.
Melissa Harris and Pamela Hess