When Sunset Publishing Corporation opened its doors to the participants of the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference; we were among the 60 people who experienced hospitality that can only be found in its magazines pages.

Sunset Magazine, first published in 1898, promotes the unique lifestyle with food and wine, home & garden and incredible travel, inspiring people to achieve the dream of living in the Western United States.

On April 6, we headed to 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park, 30 km south of San Francisco to have a tour of the Sunset gardens, the test kitchen, and the vintage wine cellar.

Among the Sunset food contingent who welcomed us to the early-California style building were food editor Margo True, associate editor Elaine Johnson, recipe editor Amy Machnack, and test kitchen manager Stephanie Spencer.

Sunset's land was originally part of a grant to Don José Arguello, governor of Spanish California in 1815. It has a 5000 square-meter lawn, four designated areas representing the Northwest, Northern California, Central California, and the Southwest Desert and Southern California regions, and 300 square-meter test garden.

The beautiful gardens with striking hues are real landscape art, combining trees, shrubs, vines, ground covers, perennials, and ornamental grasses. The constantly changing test garden is full of the latest food crops and garden projects the magazine is working on for its reportage.

Sunset’s test kitchen is made up of 4 individual kitchens that are fully equipped and designed to simulate a home kitchen. The food troops cook and create recipes for the magazine in these huge kitchens. Once there was a recipe that was tested 16 times because the food group did not find it right.

Sunset staff is always ready to try the food from the test kitchen. Amy said the success indicator is the little chef with red and green flags. Green means the food is good and red is an indication of unsuccessful test.

The test kitchen  is open for public tours because it is important for readers to know where the recipes are created and perfected.

Sunset has an outdoor kitchen that the staff is very proud of. It has a huge pizza oven, barbeque grills, a cocktail/wine bar, and a long counter inset with multiple grills and a ferociously hot wok burner.

In Sunset Magazine’s issue of The Food Lover’s Guide, Margo True wrote: Food trends build and crest here like the waves of the Pacific- garden to table, locavorism, backyard farming, raw food, veganism, Paleo – and most of the time they flow right on across the country, tantalizing and sometimes scandalizing all those states to the east.

A panel of experts invited by Sunset magazine seemed to elaborate what Margo wrote by eloquently discussing the history of California cuisine and food movement in the State. Those were Charles Perry, food historian who was a food writer for the Los Angeles Times for 18 years; Jerry Di Vecchio, Sunset’s former editor, Joyce Goldstein cookbook author and consultant to restaurant and food industries; Sibella Kraus who launched the farm-to table movement in the Bay Area while a Chez Panisse cook, and Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer prize–winning food critic.

The event featured rarely seen articles from the magazine's century-old archives reprinted, pasted on cardboards and displayed on the dining tables.

Although Sunset Magazine promotes the West, its pages are grazed with international tidbits. Sunset proudly shared the facts that its first enchilada recipe was published in 1922 and pesto in 1946 before the sauce becomes popular in many households. An interesting display was an article Meet the cooks and foods of Southeast Asia from its April 1984 issue. 

We sat down to an edible timeline: a lunch of choice dishes from California's past and present.

A menu card was the replica of Sunset Magazine first cover of May 1898 on one side. On the other side was  the lunch menu mentioning in which issue each recipe was published. This was a small gesture that impressed guests.

Chef John Fink and his team prepared fast, fresh and delicious fare with recipes that can be retrieved from Sunset website. 

California History Lunch

Menu Meyer Lemon Spitzer – November 1994

Gabriel’s Guacamole – August 2006 

Indian- Spiced Guacamole – March 2013 

Grilled Skuna Bay salmon in a bay laurel “cage” – July 2013

Santa Maria – style tri-tip (Belcamo Meat co.) – The Sunset cookbook 2010 

Fettucine with sorrel-almond pesto – June 2013

Chez Panisse’s baked goat cheese & spring lettuce salad – May 2007 

Roasted asparagus with lemon – May 2005 

Brown sugar strawberry tart – April 2010 

Wente Vineyard wines – Anchor Steam beer

Peet’s coffee & tea

Sunset Magazine pampers its readers not only through its beautiful magazines, website and books. Sunset’s Celebration Weekend  held every year welcomes more than 20,000 visitors to an annual outdoor festival, located at its headquarters. Guests tour the gardens and test kitchens, try micro-brews and regional wines, meet celebrity chefs, attend editors’ demonstrations about entertaining, gardening, and local travel, and sample some of the best foods from the Western states.

On the bus, heading to San Francisco after the impressive tour, we flipped through Sunset Magazine’s first ever food issue and again experienced a warm hospitality.

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Images: Omar Niode Foundation