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After 70 years in print, Gourmet magazine will call its November issue its final one. While rags like Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country (oh, come on, the latter is nothing short of genius; in fact, the bizarre cakes featured on the inside back covers are getting framed and tastefully displayed in our kitchen this week!) have turned our attention away from the Conde Naste magazine devoted to gastronomical delights and travel writing, it is/was an institution. Alas. Eater has more on the publication's depressing demise.
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Choosing between Gorumet, Bon Appetit, Saveur, et al. is pretty much like choosing between Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler - sure, one may show a little more pink than the other, but really, who buys porns at the newstand these days?
Cook's Illstrated of course being the Popular Mechanics or Consumer Reports of the food world and thus not quite the same thing.
Exactly. They're all useless rags fit only for people who want to see glossy photos of food they'll never eat and fluffy articles that better enable them to follow the newest pointless trend. They contribute nothing of value to the culinary community, perhaps at one time, but no longer.
Cook's Illustrated, however, actually serves a useful purpose and is written more in the manner of a scientific journal. Even if you have little interest in the recipe being presented it's worth reading for the process alone. Even better you have the tools to take the recipes that you don't quite like and modify them to better fit your own tastes.
Yes, they have flaws (for some reason they prefer expensive pans and dubiously cheap stamped knives with more brand loyalty than would seem to be expected), but they don't accept advertising (they have no qualms about selling their subscriber list or encasing the magazine in two pages of ads for their cookbooks though) and you'll actually learn something from reading it.
The former are cheap cable porn, the latter is fine erotica.