Annette chef is launching a culinary magazine next month

Apparently, running two restaurants while also raising a child just isn’t enough stress and risk for chef Caroline Glover, so she had to get into print journalism, as well. 

Next month, the James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Annette and the cocktail and oyster bar Traveling Mercies will launch the inaugural issue of Mother Sauce, a print magazine focused on food and restaurants written by and for the hospitality industry.

“We have almost a decade under our belt running a restaurant as a husband-wife team, and I just feel like there’s a lot out there to say,” she says. “We’re also surrounded by really talented people, and we want a place for them to put their things. So it just kind of morphed into this first ‘zine.”

The result is a collection of recipes, essays, book reviews, photos and interviews all focused on the life of a restaurant worker. The first issue, for instance, contains stories about how to deal with bad reviews, tips on music selection, food costs, maintenance, employee relations and the realities of running a restaurant as a married couple. 

It also has many of Glover’s recipes, including those for tinned fish dressing, roasted chicken, puntarelle, martinis, charred radicchio salad and more, some with QR codes that link to a video of Glover cooking the dish. 

“We’re kind of just starting this off, see what sticks and what people are into,” she says. 

In 2022, Glover won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mountain, and in 2018, Annette was a semi-finalist in the Best New Restaurant category. She was also named one of the 10 best new chefs in the country by Food & Wine magazine in 2019. 

Contributing to her magazine effort are her husband and Annette co-owner Nelson Harvey, who is a freelance journalist, as well as local food photographer and Denver food subreddit moderator Dan Richard, and eventually other contributors as the publication takes hold. 

“It’s been such a fun creative outlet,” Glover says. “I have artwork in it, like, little doodles. Nelson’s gotten to write in a way, in a capacity, that he hasn’t. So for me, it’s almost sparked a different creative side that I needed from the day-to-day. I mean, every day’s a shit show, but this is just a different one.”

The first issue will come out in mid to late August, with individual prints priced at $20 and subscriptions available today for $55. Eventually, Mother Sauce will expand into a Substack newsletter subscription as well, she says.

“The idea was to start with something that people can hold in their hands,” Glover explains. “I just feel like we all scroll so much, and our mailboxes are so full of so much shit, that I wanted people to be able to open something and read it.”

For subscription information and to learn more, visit mothersaucepress.com.