There’s this zinester trope that we all tend to start our series by apologizing at how long it’s been since we last published an issue. (There’s even a Copy Scams song that references this habit!) Usually the breaks are a few months long, maybe a year or two, but I think that Dan Taylor’s The Hungover Gourmet just might hold the world record: as the editor letter states, it’s been fifteen years since the last issue dropped! And while I personally hadn’t encountered past issues of this zine before it arrived in my P.O. Box, I sure am glad that it’s back and is now a part of my regular zine rotation.

The Hungover Gourmet is a half-size “journal of food, drink, travel, and fun” chock-full of essays, reviews, interviews, and recipes. We’ve all gotta eat, so there’s something here for everyone. It’s a comp-zine peppered with perzine tendencies, and the personal essays were the hands-down highlights of this issue. My favorites were the article about Vincent Price that kicked things off — as as big fan of Vince, it’s always a pleasure to read of a fellow fan encountering his cookbooks for the first time — and Curt Purcell’s “A Personal Journey to and Through Beer”, a heartfelt look at how the author’s relationship to beer has shifted and grown with him overtime. There are both restaurant reviews as well as odes to those that are now long shuttered, examinations of food-adjacent movies and media, and explorations into recipes past like a 1980s church potluck casserole that sounded oddly appealing and might find a way into my meal plan soon. Does all this sound intriguing? Want to share your own foodie thoughts and musings? The Hungover Gourmet‘s “Lost in the Supermarket” issue is due to drop in less than a year and they are currently accepting content submissions through September 30th. Check out their website if you want more details.