The terrific new issue of Cookbook magazine focuses on designer Albert Folch

We’re used to seeing publications about food and publications that play with the book/magazine format, but Cookbook combines these two forms into something very special. The second issue of the annual Madrid-based title reached us recently, resplendent in its smart blue cover which Albert Folch – designer, surfer and subject of numero #2 – describes as “a colour that has accompanied me since I was a kid.”

Cookbook aims to “analyse the work of an artist…through the metaphor of cooking” and Albert is a fine subject on which to focus. He gets to choose the content, the contributors and the font (Futura) as well as the colour scheme, and it’s no surprise the new issue is a thing of beauty; from the interesting layouts to the fantastic photography and illustration. The content itself defies easy description; there’s food here for sure but there’s also film, art, travel and fashion staying true to the magazine’s mission to use food as a metaphor or a starting point rather than an end in itself.

It works and then some; the only downside is we have to wait 12 more months to see issue number three!