Barbara Fairchild joined Bon Appetit in 1978 as an editorial assistant typing (yes, on a typewriter) recipes. Today, she runs the magazine, and with the closure of Gourmet last month, has become one of the most watched women in food publishing.

She’s a powerful executive who splits her time between homes in Los Angeles and New York, when she’s not at one of the many events she runs or attends all year. She’s more than bi-coastal: Her life partner of 19 years, Paul Nagle, is based in Washington, D. C. In some city, they try to spend Thursdays through Sundays together.

Of course, maybe her story shouldn’t be a surprise. Her mother, Ina Lieb, went from secretary to vice president of her company—and she’s an accomplished home cook to boot.

“There’s definitely a parallel there,” Fairchild says one sunny lunchtime at Cecconi’s, a Los Angeles restaurant.

She says it’s a great place for breakfast, reasonably priced and quiet. That’s just the sort of advice she is eager to give, and the personification of the role she wants for her magazine—a pal who might nudge you to try kabocha squash or squid or a new restaurant.

The food magazine landscape has changed. Gourmet is gone, and Bon Appetit lost six staff members in layoffs. And though Bon Appetit is one of the largest food magazines, with an average monthly circulation approaching 1.5 million, there are plenty of others out there, as well as bloggers and Web sites and Food Network shows and other TV programs.

With all that competition, Bon Appetit is working to keep its brand relevant, through blogs and online forums, cookbooks and a new mail-order venture selling selected wines paired with recipes.

“I want to embrace it all,” she said. “We have embraced (change), not shied away.”

While some gripe that too much of today’s food television is just entertainment, Fairchild sees the positive side, as she seems wont to do, noting that many young people are watching. As much as she loves Julia Child’s television shows, she said, she finds that when food is served on “Iron Chef”: “I feel like I’m tasting it.”

Although she spent her first eight years in New York, she’s an Angeleno at heart. Italian food is the cuisine she’d pick if she could have just one.

“It’s so simple, but it feels so sophisticated ... taking something wonderful and letting it shine, letting it star,” Fairchild said.

And over three decades at Bon Appetit, as she became executive editor in 1985 and editor in chief in 2000, she has witnessed a revolution.

She was initiated in the days when new gadgets such as microwaves and food processors were getting attention, when recipes carried “asterisk after asterisk” telling adventurous readers to “go to this market, go to that neighborhood,” Fairchild said. She recalls spending an entire Saturday making a Julia Child bread recipe, most of it gone in a flash.

While some readers still want to spend Saturdays that way, they no longer have to spend all day searching for recipes and ingredients. The Internet has changed the way people approach shopping and deciding what and how to cook.

At bonappetit.com, for example, readers can take a short survey about their Thanksgiving plans and get menu suggestions, watch a slide show of appetizers to buy or, if they register, have access to a calendar of food holidays and events. But it’s the magazine that remains the centerpiece, she said.

“Going through the pages of a magazine is still a very lush experience,” says Fairchild, who enthusiastically leafs through the December issue a few days before it’s out, pointing to features — even ads — she’s proud of.