Alum To Helm Gourmet Magazine

In a step aimed at revitalizing its image, Gourmet magazine has named John H. Willoughby '70 its new executive editor, effective this February.

Adams House alum Willoughby has previously co-written cookbooks with colorful titles such as "License to Grill" and "How to Cook Meat," with chef Chris Schlesinger.

Willoughby describes himself more as a food writer than a food critic or restaurateur.

While Gourmet is "the flagship of food magazines," according Willoughby, he sees the magazine's scope as the intersection between food and culture.

Willoughby's task as executive editor will be to make Gourmet's prose as captivating as that of its fellow Conde Nast publication The New Yorker, Willoughby said.

Willoughby's path to becoming a food writer was indirect. Until 1989, he worked for the Mass. State Department of Public Health. In 1986, he helped found a free clinic for HIV/AIDS patients. Out of a desire to make his patients' stay more comfortable, he learned to cook, developing a unique style of home-cooked food.

When Willoughby's friend and fellow chef Schlesinger compiled a cookbook in 1989, he turned to Willoughby for his writing skills.

This book became "The Thrill of the Grill," which has become a bible for aspiring barbecue chefs everywhere according to many reviews. The book won the James Beard Award for "Cookbook of the Year" in 1990.

Willoughby credits Harvard with teaching him how to write. He says that Harvard's copious number of writing assignments "prepared me for being a writer."

Gourmet's new editor attributes much of his success to the positive influence of classmate Ben Brooks '70, a fiction writer.

For the past 11 years, Willoughby has worked at Cook's Illustrated magazine, which is focused more exclusively on recipes than Gourmet does. He was a features writer on Cook's Illustrated until five years ago, when he became senior editor. He has also contributed to the New York Times and Martha Stewart Living.

Willoughby met Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl at California's Culinary Institute's writer's workshop last year, and she was impressed enough to name him her second in command. Willoughby is currently a Cambridge resident but will move to New York City to run Gourmet.