Welcome all.

It's a brand new edition of Art Culinaire--a weighty one at that. It's wicked so keep it locked right here. We're celebrating 75 issues. That's almost 20 years of putting together an encyclopedic selection of the most compelling chefs spanning two decades.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It's good to be in the chair for this one. We've loaded the gun for you.

To kick off the party, we're changing things up a bit. We're moving in a new direction--a positive one. Have a look at the revised Industry Spotlight section. This quarter, rather than our standard Q & A, we've decided to dish up your interview a little differently--an hour-by-hour account. We broke away to Chicago to see how Charlie Trotter spends just ONE diverse day. As expected, it's spontaneous. He's testing the margins, as only Trotter knows how.

Then we probe an arbitrary word in the food world--gourmet. What exactly does it mean? We look at the names we know you've heard of. There's Bouley and the only shade of Gray we know. We've worked hard to bring these heavyweights to you. We also go gourmet at Home and pay a visit to a closet-size Spanish ham bar.

It's on to a retrospective look at a few of our first issues. There's Lidia Bastianich who Art Culinaire met up with way back in Issue 2. It was Bradley Ogden's first appearance in Issue 3. He's lept from Larkspur to Las Vegas. And remember the fellow whose food was ahead of the times in Issue 5? We've paid a visit to Guenter Seeger.

Have you had enough yet?

Well, lucky for you the tempo slows to a snail's pace. We examine the slow food movement that's growing in momentum worldwide. A couple chefs take a whack at that one.

And a beverage. It pops. It fizzes. No, we're not talking about champagne, though certainly this occasion warrants it. We're talking about the other fizzy stuff America tends to consume too much of--soda.

So grab a glass. Pop a cold one. And enjoy.

--cmn