How about a MeFi cookbook?

August 2, 2005 6:27 AM

Ravin Dave suggested a MeFi Cookbook. Though it terrifies me, I would volunteer to organize this thingamajig. However, not sure how Matt would want to deal with it. Discuss.
posted by Medieval Maven to MetaFilter-related at 6:27 AM (102 comments total)

Sounds like a good idea. A wiki, perhaps?
posted by signal at 6:35 AM on August 2, 2005

what about MefiProjects? isn't that supposed to be happening?
posted by amberglow at 6:58 AM on August 2, 2005

I saw that, and thought, wow, that really is a great idea.

"Everyone" (meaning those who want to participate) could just contribute their all time favourite recipes. We could credit the recipes in the book as part of the recipe name or just below it, i.e., "Puke and Cry's Pea Soup", or "Chicken Fritters, as contributed by stavrosthewonderchicken".

It could work great on line if someone wanted to host it. If we did in as a book that was for sale part of the profits could go to the Matt, and part to some charity. (And of course whoever did the major work compiling and editing it should get a cut.)
posted by orange swan at 7:12 AM on August 2, 2005

This sounds awesome. I love to cook and would gladly contribute several recipes.
posted by kaseijin at 7:21 AM on August 2, 2005

In some circles, my catering is legendary.

*Gathers ingredients for IIHAA's Vegan Rump Roast*

---

In other words, if no one else steps forward, I could host a wiki.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:31 AM on August 2, 2005

I don't think a Wiki is the best way to go for this project. When would it be acceptable to edit someone else's recipe?
posted by null terminated at 7:33 AM on August 2, 2005

IIHAA I wish I was less scared by your comment than I am. Perhaps I'm getting old. Perhaps I'm getting smart. Regardless, I think it sounds like a great idea, and really good as a wiki. Please keep us informed.
posted by OmieWise at 7:34 AM on August 2, 2005

With sciurus's permission, I would hope these recipes get included.
posted by caddis at 7:36 AM on August 2, 2005

Hehe, sure caddis. I'm not sharing my fudge recipe though.
posted by sciurus at 7:42 AM on August 2, 2005

I personally think it would be pretty cool to get it organized online in some way and then also have a print version available, as well. I mean, everyone's grandmother's church does this (or sewing circle, or elephant training club, or whatever) so surely it's doable.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2005

This would be cool. All my dishes are unspectacular, but I have a couple of low brow things worth throwing in. I <3 this!
posted by absalom at 7:52 AM on August 2, 2005

Sweet idea! Count me in!
posted by tr33hggr at 8:04 AM on August 2, 2005

It would be a unique chance to have a cookbook with recipies from people with names like 'If I had an Anus' and 'fishfucker'.

I wonder how well it would sell at Wallmart?
posted by sebas at 8:13 AM on August 2, 2005

I bet someone contributes red velvet cake, though when I tried making it, it was VILE.
posted by orange swan at 8:13 AM on August 2, 2005

Of course we'd be banned at Wal-Mart, sebas, but we'd wear our bannination with pride.
posted by orange swan at 8:14 AM on August 2, 2005

That'd be cool. I'll submit Sam Giancana's Last Meal, which also happens to be my standby quick dinner.
posted by me3dia at 8:20 AM on August 2, 2005

I'd be willing to submit a few recipes... and might I suggest Lulu for the publishing options?
posted by crunchland at 8:27 AM on August 2, 2005

I have been in the process of writing my own for the past year with the intent of giving it to my niece when she turn 18 in 3 years. It's a blast.
I would be willing to contribute in whatever form that the project takes and would be very willing to give you a hand, Medieval Maven.
While I plan to give mine in it's handwritten form because it seems more personal, I have considered using this company.
posted by Heatwole at 8:30 AM on August 2, 2005

Lulu looks really great, particularly for our purposes.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:39 AM on August 2, 2005

I don't think a Wiki is the best way to go for this project. When would it be acceptable to edit someone else's recipe?

How about, we each have an account, and only the person who contributed the recipe can actually edit the recipe, but the rest of us have the option of leaving user comments, i.e., a straightforward rating, or suggested variations to the recipe.
posted by orange swan at 8:45 AM on August 2, 2005

orange swan: I think that'd be perfect. I would be happy to setup and host a modified CMS for this purpose.
posted by null terminated at 8:50 AM on August 2, 2005

I've posted several recipes to AskMe. I'd love to see this sort of thing come to fruition.
posted by Rothko at 9:00 AM on August 2, 2005

sounds like a great idea. I'd contribute a couple of recipes.
posted by Tuwa at 9:01 AM on August 2, 2005

Awesome. I even put my two recipes in a recipe box last night, so now I'm all professional! I'll have to dig up my rattlesnake quesadillas recipe somewhere.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:07 AM on August 2, 2005

I think null terminated just made the MeFite Foodies' day. :)
posted by Medieval Maven at 9:37 AM on August 2, 2005

One problem I foresee, though I really like this idea. Who's going to test the recipes to see if they're any good? Sure, we all have dozens of recipes we love, and this book could be filled with thousands by the time it's done, but only a couple hundred will probably be excellent. I think that if this were done properly, the proceeds from any book sales should goto the cooks who take time out of their schedule to test these recipes, as well as the editors who help publish them.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 9:42 AM on August 2, 2005

Count me in too.
posted by Specklet at 9:43 AM on August 2, 2005

This is a great idea! I'm game to offer up a recipe or two.
posted by fenriq at 9:43 AM on August 2, 2005

I'm in too...
posted by ramix at 9:50 AM on August 2, 2005

Oh great idea. But can we have some mechanism to argue and criticize other people's outlandish techniques and ingredients? Because that's really fun. (I'm actually serious - I love arguing about cooking.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:02 AM on August 2, 2005

SeizeTheDay writes "Who's going to test the recipes"


Comments attached to bottom of recipes a la those web-blog thingamies. The whole thing will be in beta indefinately. I don't think it is neccessary to have a tester of all the recipes, taste being subjective and all.
posted by asok at 10:05 AM on August 2, 2005

This is great. I can't wait to dig in. I have my two recipes ready and even though they've been posted in the metaverse before, I'll post them again.
posted by safetyfork at 10:10 AM on August 2, 2005

Ooh, I wanna play too!
posted by scody at 10:18 AM on August 2, 2005

Pony time: Can we have tags where you can list the ingredients, so if you're sitting at home with just a tomato and an onion for company you can find inspiration as to what to go and buy next?

Can we call it BiteMe?
posted by penguin pie at 10:26 AM on August 2, 2005

Or EatMe?
posted by penguin pie at 10:27 AM on August 2, 2005

Excellent idea. I have several meat based dishes that (ahem) come damn near to a professional steakhouse in flavor. Remember - People Eat Tasty Animals!
Compile it, bind it, and sell it.
posted by buzzman at 10:29 AM on August 2, 2005

ReciMe?

I'm in. This sounds like fun.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:30 AM on August 2, 2005

One of them new-fangled weblog thingies seems perfect for this... The Red Kitchen does it with MT though there would certainly be licensing problems for a new install if each contributor was defined as an author. However, there is certainly no shortgage of weblog applications/CMS's that would work just as well providing the permission system was flexible enough. I can't imagine any sane person opening up a weblog to the public, but having people submit drafts pending review and eventual publishing should be simple enough.

null terminated, there aren't many of these contraptions I haven't hacked to shreds and I would be happy to help out any way that I can. I think it's a great idea.
posted by cedar at 10:37 AM on August 2, 2005

Great idea. There are open source web-based recipe database tools with multiple user accounts like ReciPants or Koch-Suite, which could probably be used (with some tweaking to add MeFi specific features). Or get some Ruby on Rails coders to do their magic...
posted by ltl at 10:38 AM on August 2, 2005

Who's going to test the recipes to see if they're any good?

Well, how about .. if you submit a recipe, you have to agree to test one other one? A random one, with maybe an option to opt-out for veggie/non-veggie.

(Although I admit, I recall the non-compliance rate with past Mefi CD swaps, it'd be hard to enforce.)
posted by crunchland at 10:38 AM on August 2, 2005

Sounds like a really great idea. I'd be more than willing to do the design if this turned into a print project.
posted by helvetica at 11:02 AM on August 2, 2005

crunchland: non-compliance will be less of an issue with a crowd that will be composed in no small part of people who like to cook. They'll test more than one recipe each, and thus compensate for the l4m3rz.
posted by cortex at 11:05 AM on August 2, 2005

I don't think we need to test the recipes. The person submitting it has tested it. If we launch this thing as a web site (and damn, I vote for EatMe) and have it going awhile, we're sure to get thousands of recipes within a few months. If we need to narrow that down to go to print with a select few hundred, we can select by most number of positive comments or highest rated or something.

Possible features might include:

- a rating system as well as user comment fields on every recipe page

- exhaustive search functions. We'll need to organize by category, of course (appetizers, meat dishes, breads, salads, etc.) but we'll also want to search by ingredient, and possibly by factors like amount of prep time, "no bake"/"no cook", low fat, etc. People might even like a "this user posted these other recipes" option.
posted by orange swan at 11:08 AM on August 2, 2005

troubles with domain name eatme.*
posted by crunchland at 11:22 AM on August 2, 2005

BiteMe is also taken . . .but there is always MeBites.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:29 AM on August 2, 2005

(What a helpful site, crunchland. It's good to know that eatmedry.com is still available...)
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:35 AM on August 2, 2005

hmm, this could be a fascinating project.

The database would be recipe title, ingredients, category, and instructions at the very least. Comments, photos, and ratings would be nice as well.

I think it'd be cool if it started as a website and the highest rated 20-30 recipes went into a print version at the end. Selling through LuLu would be easiest.
posted by mathowie at 11:36 AM on August 2, 2005

Can someone post a demo recipe here as a comment that we could use as a reference data source? I want to figure out how many fields would be necessary to do this in a database.
posted by mathowie at 11:37 AM on August 2, 2005

Asado de Bodas


This is a traditional Mexican wedding dish, prepared primarily in the Durango area of northern Mexico.

The Meat

2 lbs. Pork (sirloin, butt, or picnic) with some fat, cut to 1 inch cubes
½ medium onion, roughly sliced
6 garlic cloves, mashed
sea salt to taste

The Sauce

6 Tb. Lard (manteca)
4 chiles anchos, slit, veins and seeds removed
reserved pork broth
8 medium tomate verde (tomatillos)
4 garlic cloves, peeled
½ corn tortilla
1 slice of dry French bread
1/8 ts. cumin seed, crushed
1 oz. Mexican drinking chocolate
2 bay leaves
¼ ts. Mexican oregano
thinly pared zest of ½ an orange
sea salt to taste

Technique

Put pork into stockpot; add the onion, garlic, and salt. Cover with cold water, cover the pan, and bring to a simmer; cook slowly for 30 minutes. Remove 2 cups of this broth and keep warm. Continue cooking the meat until just tender but not soft. Drain and cool.
Melt 3 Tb. Of the lard in a frying pan, preferably cast iron, and fry the anchos very briefly on each side until they are an opaque tobacco brown color on the inside, this takes about 5 seconds. Remove from pan and add to broth. Try the tomate verge and garlic until golden brown and also add to the heat. Fry the bread and the tortilla over low heat until crisp and brown. Add to the broth. Let the bowl of ingredient rest until the chile skins are very soft. Add the onions and the garlic from the pork stock.
Transfer the mixture to a blender, add the cumin seed, and the chocolate, and blend till smooth.
Melt the rest of the lard and fry the pork pieces by batches until golden. Add the blended sauce along with the bay leaves, oregano, orange zest and salt to taste and cook over low heat until fairly thick. Serve with rice and corn tortillas.
posted by Heatwole at 11:43 AM on August 2, 2005

Title: Gazpacho
Type: Soup (Cold)
Vegetarian

Ingredients:
4 Roma Tomatoes – cored & seeded
1 Green Bell pepper – cored & seeded
2 Cucumbers – peeled, seeded
1 garlic clove – Elephant garlic makes it twice as nice! *
– the above should all be roughly chopped –

4 c. Tomato juice
¾ tsp Tabasco sauce
1 ½ tsp salt
¼ tsp white pepper
¼ c. red wine vinegar
¼ c. olive oil
¼ c. plain dry bread crumbs
2 c. ice water

Serves: 4-5

Calories/Nutrition: ? (Maybe)

Prep Time: 30 Minutes

Instructions:
Bowl for the Gazpacho should be one that you can refrigerate, that also has a lid.

Divide the veggies into two or three batches, adding ¾ c. tomato juice to each batch in your blender/food processor. This helps the mixture to chop more evenly. Blend to the consistency of salsa. (This is not the attractive stage of the food, so just sort of ignore it for now.) Transfer each batch to the aforementioned bowl with lid. When all vegetables are properly blended, stir in the rest of the tomato juice, tobasco, salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil, bread crumbs and water. Refrigerate for at least four hours (we usually opt for overnight). Serve with warm toasty French bread slices.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:47 AM on August 2, 2005

I think allowing comment posting is a good idea. (Though, as with vegweb.com, people might use it mostly to post their own personal variants.) (I've been guilty of it too, sure.)

I don't know if it's a good idea to require rating a recipe in order to post one, especially at the beginning, when there are fewer recipes to choose from and less likelihood there will be any up that a given user would like. But, if it's worked out like that, fine; just please add an option to filter recipes by veg/non-veg. :-)

A print version would be great, but I wouldn't buy a recipe with only 30 recipes in it. I think my smallest cookbook has about 200.
posted by Tuwa at 11:52 AM on August 2, 2005

MetaCook.com is available, as is MetaKitchen.com.

Mathowie, I imagine the following fields:
Title
Author/Source
Description/Commentary
Ingredients
Equipment (?)
Cooking Instructions
Cuisine Type/Food Category (ie, French, breakfast, quick, etc. -- possibly handled via tags)

Ingredients and Equipment would probably benefit from some formatting constraints.
posted by me3dia at 12:13 PM on August 2, 2005

Cuisine Type/Food Category (ie, French, breakfast, quick, etc. -- possibly handled via tags)

Yes, please, tags, tags, tags (each recipe's tags in it's own row in a separate table referencing the recipe ID). Same should go for ingredients if an efficient search of ingredients is a requirement (ingredient and amount as separate columns).

But nobody is really thinking about coding this up from scratch, are they?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 12:18 PM on August 2, 2005

People with allergies might appreciate a way to exclude recipes with specific ingredients from their search.
posted by orange swan at 12:25 PM on August 2, 2005

This project is great, and I'd be happy to contribute my bachelor cuisine, which would be a great category by the way. Anyone up for Pop-Tarts a la mode?

Anyone?
posted by cyphill at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2005

Oh right, cyphill, and be sure to contribute your potato chip recipe too....

1 bag of potato chips

Open bag. Reach in and take chip(s). Enjoy.
posted by orange swan at 12:57 PM on August 2, 2005

But nobody is really thinking about coding this up from scratch, are they?

If it means avoiding the jruns, I'd do it. A php/mysql database system would be good.
posted by crunchland at 1:08 PM on August 2, 2005

People with allergies might appreciate a way to exclude recipes with specific ingredients from their search.

Sounds like a good second phase feature. I'm trying to figure out what base level featureset could get this going.

Sounds like:

- title of dish
- description

- ingredients (probably one big field at first, listing each as a separate data point would be a pain when adding new recipes)

- cooking instructions (big text blob)

- # served

- prep time

- vegetarian? (yes/no -- could add more options similarly)

- photo

- category or tags instead (I lean towards tags like: french breakfast quick fancy). Categories are tough to have enough of, but you can easily sort recipes by it. Tags are great for open ended stuff, but might be hard to pull up stable categories (maybe top ten generally used tags could be in place of categories).

- comments from users on the recipe

- ratings or simply [this is good] votes from users


From there, it could grow, but that seems like a good basic start of something to be built at cooking.metafilter.com or recipes.metafilter.com.
posted by mathowie at 1:08 PM on August 2, 2005

taste.metafilter.com
posted by soplerfo at 1:11 PM on August 2, 2005

soplerfo: taste.metafilter.com - a contradition in terms?

mathowie: looks great.

I like the sound of MetaKitchen if EatMe is gone.

Given the international readership, a page of/link to conversion tables would be useful - I can still never remember how much a cup is.
posted by penguin pie at 1:30 PM on August 2, 2005

Count me in, please. I've got a couple good recipes for ribs, stir fry, muffins, chilli, and quite a few vegan and vegetarian dishes. Most of them (with the ribs as an exception) are pretty good for quick, easy meals.

Maybe before we get started on this, we should update the spellchecker to include the word "vegan."
posted by Jon-o at 1:40 PM on August 2, 2005

penguin pie writes "Given the international readership, a page of/link to conversion tables would be useful - I can still never remember how much a cup is."

Google can help. Type:

[Amount] [First unit of measure] to [Second unit of measure]

example:
4 cups to milliliters

Google says: 4 US cups = 946.35295 milliliters
posted by OmieWise at 1:44 PM on August 2, 2005

This may be crazy talk, but could there be separate sets of tags? I could see one set being for cuisine type (French, Italian, conceptual), another for meal type (breakfast, snack, quick, fancy) and another for key ingredients or lack thereof (beef, carrots, vegan, gluten-free).

Perhaps a team could review and/or assign tags for recipes once they're submitted, but before they go live. Besides maintaining consistent tagging, it might eliminate repeats or fake recipes.
posted by me3dia at 1:53 PM on August 2, 2005

Mmm. Sounds great.
FoodFilter? TasteFilter? TaFi? MetaKitchen? MeKi?
It'd be neat to see other recipes with the same ingredients, or similar ingredients. Sort of a social database... A breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack radio button? Tags for ethnicities?
Finally, an outlet for Nacheronis and Cheese, part of the Stoner Gourmet series... (No, I make real food too...)
posted by klangklangston at 1:55 PM on August 2, 2005

Good point, penguin pie. There was an AskMe thread recently from a UK reader asking how much a cup was, and a link from that thread pointed out various cultural assumptions inherent in U.S. cooking (pack brown sugar and scrape level; don't pack flour but do scrape level; other ingredients are not scraped level at all but simply mounded in the measuring cup, etc.)

So ... maybe add a tag to explain what country's measurement system is being used.
posted by Tuwa at 2:08 PM on August 2, 2005

me3dia, tags can be a string of things. So if I was going to tag my recipe for a frittata I tried the other day, it might have these: eggs, dinner, italian, vegetables, leftovers. Some are ingredients, one is the meal type, one is the origin, one's an idea for what to put in it, and together they cover all.
posted by mathowie at 2:27 PM on August 2, 2005

Oh I have this REALLY spiffy dessert that I truly love! Share the joy of the deep fried Hostess products!
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 2:41 PM on August 2, 2005

I wasn't very clear, I guess.

I understand how tags work. I guess I was thinking that having different classes or sets of tags might make it easier to serve up lists of tags that fit those categories -- so that rather than having all the tags in one big pile, like they are for the Blue and Green, you could choose see only tags associated with ingredients or meal types, like so:

Search by...
• Cuisine
african american americancontemporary armenian belgian canadian french french-canadian german italian

• Meal Type / Preparation
baked BBQ breakfast brunch casserole dessert dinner fast leftovers lunch salad saute snack

• Ingredient / Restriction
anchovies babybackribs beef carrots chicken glutenfree rhubarb rutabega vegan vegetarian
posted by me3dia at 2:55 PM on August 2, 2005

I love to cook and I have loved the recipes we've all contributed here over the years. Hooray for all who have offered to help, host, etc. BTW, who will contribute the pancake recipe? (I'm all about heart- and diabetes-recipes nowadays, myself, but I do have a killer pancake recipe.)
posted by Lynsey at 3:21 PM on August 2, 2005

Er, make that heart-healthy and diabetes-healthy recipes.
posted by Lynsey at 3:23 PM on August 2, 2005

I built my wife a recipe database a while back so she could store them all on the server in the living room and call them up on a terminal in the kitchen. The fields were:

Title (name of dish)
Type (main course, appetizer, dessert, etc.)
Main ingredient (primary key)
Secondary ingredients
Cooking Instructions
Cook Time [in 15-minute increments up to 1 hour, then 1-hour increments] (1-15 minutes, 16-30 minutes, 31-45 minutes, 46-60 minutes, 1 hr-2hrs, etc.)
Number of people served

This seemed to work OK, and the most-searched field was always the main ingredient, with secondary ingredients a close second (i.e., "I have a pound of ground beef and three onions, what can I make?")

The main problem I faced was how to weight the search terms (I have a pound of ground beef and three onions AND I need to serve seven in under an hour), but that can be tuned with time.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:47 PM on August 2, 2005

Rx means recipe.
How about MetaRx? (Just say metarks)
Might it draw a prescription crowd instead of a hungry crowd?
posted by Cranberry at 4:00 PM on August 2, 2005

"metafilterbites.com".
posted by kenko at 4:22 PM on August 2, 2005

http://taste.metafilter.com AKA TasteMe

http://cooking.metafilter.com AKA CookMe

Okay, so recipes.metafilter.com makes the most sense, but I'm all about trying to think of a URL that can be condensed into an affectionate yet rude nickname.

If it's going to be a fourth page under the MeFi umbrella, I suggest red for the colour. Red is suitable for food because it stimulates the appetite — that's why so many restaurants are decorated in red. Or maybe a burgundy would be less obtrusive and more comfortable to read from.
posted by orange swan at 4:28 PM on August 2, 2005

the poor, poor server.
posted by crunchland at 4:48 PM on August 2, 2005

I like metafilterbites.com, it has some snap.
posted by cyphill at 5:01 PM on August 2, 2005

I'm in, this is a fantastic idea!
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 5:14 PM on August 2, 2005

"...all about trying to think of a URL that can be condensed into an affectionate yet rude nickname..."

Foodfilter seems obvious to me.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:41 PM on August 2, 2005

Hm. Registered.

chowfilter.com
culinaryfilter.com
vittlesfilter.com
marthastewartmissedout.com
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:43 PM on August 2, 2005

eat.metafilter.com, delivering us the oft-remarked EatMe.
posted by me3dia at 6:06 PM on August 2, 2005

yes I said yes I will Yes! I'll contribute, of course, and I'm happy to offer editing and/or proofing help when the deranged, delightful, delovely submissions come flooding in.

NB: My expertise is restricted to the English language, not HTML or Java or whatever these gadabout hoodlum gangstas are using these days.
posted by vetiver at 6:12 PM on August 2, 2005

Google can help.

Thanks OmieWise, v. handy.

eat.metafilter.com, delivering us the oft-remarked EatMe.

Hooray! I like...

Also happy to contribute any editing/proofing/other English language help and only sorry I'm with vetiver on not knowing the funky stuff.

So ... maybe add a tag to explain what country's measurement system is being used.

Or, waaay down in version 3, a version of the MeFi 'set your own time zone' feature where you can set your own measuring zone and have EatMe auto convert. So many ponies...
posted by penguin pie at 7:43 PM on August 2, 2005

Oh this is going to be so freaking cool!
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:55 PM on August 2, 2005

Keeping in mind the international nature, there should be some guidelines, re.: generic names, not brands of things (many US recipes reference “1/2 can Miracle-Whip”, or such).
Also, like for v4.0, each ingredient-tag page could include other common names of the same ingredient, that you could add to in a wiki-like fashion.
posted by signal at 8:15 PM on August 2, 2005

Super cool. I like to cook and would be happy to contribute some of my favourite (and some are so simple) meals. I can't help taking photos of what I eat either.
posted by Bdave at 8:57 PM on August 2, 2005

I also agree about the measurements and stuff. I also noted in me3dia's link above some ingredients that were not available in my country (Italian sausage?). Maybe an ingredients page where you can see descriptions and maybe also substitutions for foreigners. The descriptions could be linked from the ingredients in the recipes.

/me loves food, can't wait to see this
posted by Bdave at 9:17 PM on August 2, 2005

^↑↑ That would obviously not work in a book though.
posted by Bdave at 9:19 PM on August 2, 2005

it's just gotta be eat.metafilter.com / eatme.

Very cool idea.
posted by taz at 11:00 PM on August 2, 2005

"I also noted in me3dia's link above some ingredients that were not available in my country...."

Also, some ingredients have a different composition per location, like flour, so careful descriptions, or at least opportunities for annotation, can be important.

Also also, the unavailable-ingredients thing could create a opportunity for small-scale food swaps for folks who wants to try foreign recipes.
posted by caitlinb at 11:54 PM on August 2, 2005

If we can't have gourmetafilter.com, we should get deli.cio.us. Think of the traffic.
posted by horsewithnoname at 1:08 AM on August 3, 2005

deli.cio.us

Heh.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 3:46 AM on August 3, 2005

The more I think about it, the more ideas come to me — second and tertiary level stuff that we can add as the site evolves.

- as other people have mentioned, a measurements and conversion table would be extremely helpful.

- a glossary of terms and basic tips.

- a way to mark recipes by nationality, either the contributor's or the food item's, and then this would be one more search criteria (i.e., someone searching for a special St. Patrick's Day recipe could search for Irish recipes). It could be kind of cool if we could do indicate nationality with a little flag image — don't know if it would be worth the extra coding and broadband to do that though.

Oooooh, the more I think about this project, the cooler it gets!!! I predict that, once launched, this will immediately become as wildly popular as AskMe.
posted by orange swan at 6:05 AM on August 3, 2005

I can't wait to inflict my cooking upon you.
posted by davehat at 6:48 AM on August 3, 2005

vetiver writes "yes I said yes I will Yes!"

Does this mean you expect breakfast in bed (and afternoon "tea") everyday?
posted by OmieWise at 7:26 AM on August 3, 2005

Count me in too.
posted by transient at 7:26 AM on August 3, 2005

If this comes to pass, I am so sponsoring a contest!
posted by majick at 7:44 AM on August 3, 2005

Breakfast in bed for the contributor of the best recipe, majick?
posted by orange swan at 7:46 AM on August 3, 2005

Also, fewer fields are better. Some of my very best recipes are a sentence or two long, including ingredients. Maybe three or four if I tack on some detail about ingredient selection -- which I think is possibly the most important part of any recipe.
posted by majick at 7:49 AM on August 3, 2005

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of BIG ASS GIFT CERTIFICATE, but breakfast in bed is certainly cheaper!
posted by majick at 7:51 AM on August 3, 2005

Depends on the cost of the air fare;-)
posted by orange swan at 7:52 AM on August 3, 2005

Hot Dog! This is a yummy idea. Asparagus crepes, anyone? Shrimp Etouffe? Smoked Meat Chili? Arabian Squash Casserole? Buttermilk Poundcake? Deep Fried Ravioli with Shiitaki Mushroom Alfredo Sauce?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:25 AM on August 5, 2005

Secret Life of Gravy, would you like to come be our personal cook? I'm afraid I can't pay you, but there is a nice dog who would like a third person to pet him.

Also, I'm totally in on this, whatever it's called (I quite like gourmetafilter). Mmm, food.
posted by librarina at 11:41 AM on August 5, 2005