There are times I feel frightfully middle-aged. Like when I watched my classmates shimmy alongside much younger alums at our reunion a couple weeks back. Today I was thrown by how much I enjoyed the latest issue of Sunset magazine. How could this be? I’ve always considered Sunset a mag for California housewives… and I’m definitely not that.
 
When I first checked out Sunset in the early ’70s, we were new to California, and the magazine seemed as exotic as the Birds of Paradise in our backyard. There were layouts on lanais and Asian-inspired recipes unlike anything in McCalls or Better Homes and Gardens, two of the other mags Mom subscribed to back then. Even though we didn’t stay long in SoCal, my mother relied on the Sunset recipe for potstickers for years, serving them up where ever we were living at the time. (We moved a lot as my Dad climbed the corporate ladder.)  

Today’s Sunset doesn’t seem nearly as exotic, but it’s refreshing  in its focus on home, travel and outdoor living. No giddy sex tips, parenting tribulations or couples counseling. There’s enough of that elsewhere; believe me, I don’t miss it.