2007_07_17-the-new-victorians-observer.jpgThe cover of New York City's pink weekly, The New York Observer, screams about the arrival of "The New Victorians." Cooking at home is at the heart of this so-called trend, so we're digging in to see what truths stand behind this trendspotting.

First, what is a New Victorian?

According to The Observer a New Victorian is a "breed of ambitious, twentysomething nesters settling in the city, embracing the comforts of hearth and home with all the fervor of characters in Middlemarch ... New Vics throw dinner parties, tend to pedigreed pets, practice earnest monogamy, and affect an air of complacent careerism."

The best way to spot a New Victorian is, apparently, to haunt cookware shops:

To clock the type, one need only visit the aisles of the now ubiquitous cookery store Williams-Sonoma. At the Time Warner Center branch on a recent evening, the male half of one young couple examined a stainless steel asparagus steamer only to declare that he preferred his asparagus prepared “the old-fashioned way.”

We agree with Gawker that this piece is simultaneously "one of those classic, ridiculous Observer articles that strains to prematurely name and define a trend" and an article that shares a truth about how a certain crowd of affluent young New Yorkers live now.

We'll leave the values part of this debate to other bloggers, but we're totally up for more dinner party invites. We're also encouraged by reports that suggest cooking at home is on the rise, but we reject the hypothesis that standing at a stove stacked with high-end cookware makes one a prude.

Here's the best line from the article:

The current obsession with food preparation—I absolutely must have that Le Creuset casserole!—is totally New Victorian

There's a few pieces of Le Creuset that we covet. Does that alone make us, like, totally New Victorian or are we just grups?

Reality food fans, take note ... This issue of The Observer also includes an plea begging Gordon Ramsay to reform his American reality shows. "So I loved Gordon Ramsay. But can I still, given the way he’s behaving in America?" asks Hillary Frey under the headline Grilling Gordon.