Leslie Brenner, the Food Editor at the L.A. Times, will move over to become interim editor of the monthly Sunday magazine. There's at least nominally a search on for a permanent editor, though that's probably the wrong adjective to use for the editor of any newspaper Sunday magazine. Food will be in the hands of Michalene Busico. Memo follows from John Montorio, Managing Editor, Features:

To: The Staff
From: John Montorio, Managing Editor

Hail and farewell is a kind of holiday tradition, so let's begin with the latter.

As many of you know, our friend and colleague Lennie LaGuire finally is making good on her threat to pursue life outside The Times. Nobody, of course, is indispensable, but Lennie comes about as close as you can get. Since leaving Calendar, she's done a brilliant job leading our efforts to rethink and relaunch the magazine.

While the search for her permanent successor continues, I'm very happy to tell you that we've found just the right interim leaders within our own department, editors who will not only build on Lennie's great work, but also take the magazine to new levels of excellence and service.

So, this is the hail part and, in that context, I'm pleased to announce that Leslie Brenner has been named acting magazine editor. Under Leslie's expert direction Food has achieved new levels of journalistic success, and we've long regarded her as one of our strongest section editors. As anybody who has worked with her knows, Leslie is creative, energetic, collegial and an awfully good writer. What you may not know is that she also has an extensive background working for general interest, national magazines. She's also the author of six books, including a novel, "Greetings From the Golden State." She has served as contributing editor to five different magazines and her journalism has appeared in more than a dozen others, including Harpers, Fortune and New York. Authoritative, gracefully written journalism packaged with an eye toward maximum graphic impact and service to readers have been the hallmark of Leslie's tenure in Food. We're eager to see her employ those qualities to further the magazine's recent gains. In Leslie's absence, Michalene Busico will continue to guide Food with the able assistance of Susan LaTempa and Betty Hallock.

Our ambitions for the magazine require a strong team, so I'm also happy to announce that Sherry Stern has been named its acting managing editor. Sherry is well known in Features as the person who holds us together organizationally and colleagues outside the department know her as our effective liaison on any number of crucial paper wide processes. Sherry also happens to be a fine and unflappable editor with a calm ability to efficiently coordinate all the moving parts of even the most complicated project. Those qualities make her an ideal addition to this new magazine team and we can look for great things from her collaboration with Leslie.

There will be other announcements concerning the magazine in the months ahead, but please join me now in congratulating Leslie and Sherry on these important new assignments. The transition already is underway. Leslie will report to me. Sherry will report to Leslie on all aspects of the magazine and she will continue to report to me as a deputy editor of Features concerning any department-wide issues.