My New Project: Pit Magazine

Hello! I’m afraid this is one of those ‘sorry it’s been quiet around here’ openers. I’ve started a couple of new projects and it’s taken me a while to find my feet but now I’m back. The first thing I’m doing, of course, is telling you about one of the projects because what is this blog if not a space to promote the shit out of whatever I’ve been doing while I’ve neglected it?

Pit Magazine came about because I was approached by someone, totally out of the blue, called Holly. She wanted to make a magazine, she told me, and she thought I should be the person to do it with her and her partner, Doug. I thought about this for a little while and said, ‘ok’ because her e-mail had good vibes and when we met up, we got along well. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that the most important thing to remember when choosing colleagues is that you need to get along.

It was also a brilliant idea, of course. This is a magazine I would love to read if I found it on the shelf, which gives me hope that you will too. It’s about cooking over live fire, so it’s about barbecue all over the world (not just ‘low and slow’ in North America), from pigs in Polynesian fire pits to tiny skewers on grills in the night markets of Hong Kong.

We cover lots in the first issue, including serious stuff like the science behind woodsmoke and why it makes food taste so good, which is something I’d always been curious about. There are lovely recipes (not just meat) and there are some barbecue appropriate booze recommendations. Importantly, there’s also silly, fun stuff like the Instant Barbecue Challenge, in which we challenge a famous chef to make the best dish they can using only instant barbecues. You’ll find loads more too, of course… it’s 70 odd pages long.

It’s also beautiful because Holly is an amazing designer, and some hugely talented photographers and illustrators have contributed. It’s actually a thing that can be distributed and sold because Doug is a brilliant managing editor, and hopefully I’ve made a solid start as the editor. Now, we’re looking for contributors to the second issue, so if you’re a writer with a compelling live fire story, don’t hesitate to get in touch via helen@pitmagazine.uk.

Finally, I’d be thrilled if you’d purchase a copy. No pressure, although, PLEASE BUY ONE. It’s a very reasonable £5 plus £2.50 postage via our lush, fluoro orange website and there’s plenty to read and look at, in the manner of a proper magazine (you’ll notice I’ve rammed a full three links to the web shop into this paragraph).

We are incredibly proud of what we’ve made. It’s the product of lots of hard work and many meetings in the pub over pints and ‘crisp tapas’. Watching it come off the press brought a little tear to my eye. It’s an incredible experience to have complete control over something from start to finish (in contrast to writing a book) and I feel very excited and nervous putting it out there. I really hope you enjoy reading it, and FFS, if you spot a typo, just keep it to yourself, because I and several subeditors really do not want to know.