Travis McGee
2015-11-19 03:05:18 UTC
Christopher Kimball out at America's Test Kitchen
Christopher Kimball, whose slightly geeky, bespectacled and bow-tied
presence personified Cook’s Illustrated magazine and its "America’s Test
Kitchen" television show, is out at the company he helped found.
Boston Common Press announced the move in an email to its employees and
Kimball confirmed it in a phone call, though he refused comment. He
remains a minority owner in the company that produces the magazines and
television show, which is referred to by its umbrella title America’s
Test Kitchen. But he will “no longer play a role” at the company, the
email said.
The 64-year-old Kimball helped found Cook’s Illustrated in 1993 and
oversaw its rise to a publishing powerhouse, with nearly 900,000 paid
subscribers. A companion magazine, Cooks Country, boasts another 300,000
subscribers.
There had been rumors of trouble in the Boston-based company since
September, when David Nussbaum was installed as CEO above Kimball. It
was Nussbaum who wrote the email to employees relaying the news.
The core issue, Nussbaum said, was a contract dispute. “He was asked to
stay with the company and focus his talents on creativity, on-air
presence and in-person appearances,” Nussbaum wrote. “Despite our
interest in having him stay and after negotiating with him in good faith
for many months, he ultimately rejected that approach. We are
disappointed that he has chosen a new path, but we respect his choice.”
The next season of the “America’s Test Kitchen” television show has
already been filmed, with Kimball at the helm, prodding, poking and
arguing with his workers as viewers have come to expect.
Kimball, who in the 1980s had been a co-founder of Cooks magazine before
selling it to Condé Nast, used several former Cooks staff members as his
core group in helping to found Cook’s Illustrated. He vowed that the
magazine would make its money on circulation alone and rejected any
advertising on the grounds that it might appear to affect the magazine’s
many reviews of products.
In 'The Food Lab,' J. Kenji López-Alt turns kitchen scientist
The product was deliberately down-market, printed in black and white,
eschewing the glossy color photographs that typify most food
publications. It concentrated instead on nuts-and-bolts cooking —
testing and re-testing recipes until they had reached what the editors
deemed perfection. Plain-spoken, thoroughly tested reviews of
ingredients and equipment were also key features.
The most recent issue includes a story on the “Best Ground Beef Chili”
and a tasting of supermarket olive oils.
Starting from a base of 25,000 readers in 1993, the magazine’s
circulation topped 1 million in 2007. The growth prompted many spinoffs.
In addition to the America’s Test Kitchen television show and Cook’s
Country magazine, Boston Common Press regularly publishes cookbooks
collecting recipes from the magazines and television show.
In his email to employees, Nussbaum said that approach will remain
central to the America’s Test Kitchen brand’s identity, which is “a
rigorous research and development process that has set the gold standard
in this industry, embedded in our DNA. That development process is the
backbone of our business.”
Christopher Kimball, whose slightly geeky, bespectacled and bow-tied
presence personified Cook’s Illustrated magazine and its "America’s Test
Kitchen" television show, is out at the company he helped found.
Boston Common Press announced the move in an email to its employees and
Kimball confirmed it in a phone call, though he refused comment. He
remains a minority owner in the company that produces the magazines and
television show, which is referred to by its umbrella title America’s
Test Kitchen. But he will “no longer play a role” at the company, the
email said.
The 64-year-old Kimball helped found Cook’s Illustrated in 1993 and
oversaw its rise to a publishing powerhouse, with nearly 900,000 paid
subscribers. A companion magazine, Cooks Country, boasts another 300,000
subscribers.
There had been rumors of trouble in the Boston-based company since
September, when David Nussbaum was installed as CEO above Kimball. It
was Nussbaum who wrote the email to employees relaying the news.
The core issue, Nussbaum said, was a contract dispute. “He was asked to
stay with the company and focus his talents on creativity, on-air
presence and in-person appearances,” Nussbaum wrote. “Despite our
interest in having him stay and after negotiating with him in good faith
for many months, he ultimately rejected that approach. We are
disappointed that he has chosen a new path, but we respect his choice.”
The next season of the “America’s Test Kitchen” television show has
already been filmed, with Kimball at the helm, prodding, poking and
arguing with his workers as viewers have come to expect.
Kimball, who in the 1980s had been a co-founder of Cooks magazine before
selling it to Condé Nast, used several former Cooks staff members as his
core group in helping to found Cook’s Illustrated. He vowed that the
magazine would make its money on circulation alone and rejected any
advertising on the grounds that it might appear to affect the magazine’s
many reviews of products.
In 'The Food Lab,' J. Kenji López-Alt turns kitchen scientist
The product was deliberately down-market, printed in black and white,
eschewing the glossy color photographs that typify most food
publications. It concentrated instead on nuts-and-bolts cooking —
testing and re-testing recipes until they had reached what the editors
deemed perfection. Plain-spoken, thoroughly tested reviews of
ingredients and equipment were also key features.
The most recent issue includes a story on the “Best Ground Beef Chili”
and a tasting of supermarket olive oils.
Starting from a base of 25,000 readers in 1993, the magazine’s
circulation topped 1 million in 2007. The growth prompted many spinoffs.
In addition to the America’s Test Kitchen television show and Cook’s
Country magazine, Boston Common Press regularly publishes cookbooks
collecting recipes from the magazines and television show.
In his email to employees, Nussbaum said that approach will remain
central to the America’s Test Kitchen brand’s identity, which is “a
rigorous research and development process that has set the gold standard
in this industry, embedded in our DNA. That development process is the
backbone of our business.”