CityFood Magazine - Lucky Peach Magazine

For about a month now we've been canvassing our New York contacts to get us a copy of Chef David Chang's new quarterly food journal, Lucky Peach. (Published by McSweeney's.)

The new publication was released at the end of June, so the d*%# Canadian postal strike didn't help, however if we wait a bit longer, the whole thing should be available as an iPad app.

Chang is producing the publication along with Peter Meehan, the co-author on his Momofuku Cookbook, and it appears to follow the same free wheeling, observe-no-boundaries style.

Visually, it projects part Japanese comic book/part student art project, but being well funded and well-connected, Chang spares no expense on the production values: high quality paper stock, perfect binding ...yada, yada. Nor does it lack for big byline contributors. Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl, Harold McGee, Wylie Dufresne, are just of a few of the well recognized names on the pages. In general, it's a good example of how far a celebrity publisher can indulge his creative ego and personal point of view in print when there are no commercial, or perhaps even moral, considerations. (The 175 pages contain no advertisements.)

Each issue of Lucky Peach will follow a central theme (the premier copy focuses on ramen, a Chang specialty), and we like that idea as CityFood has long been into the theme concept as well. Each turn of the page contains the potential to cough up something surprising, obnoxious, provocative and terrific.

Most of all, we like the cover. Unlike all the cliche food magazines on the stands that attempt to push the button connected to your salivary glands, with Lucky Peach it's your head that instantly feels hungry.