from A Mighty Appetite, a blog of the Washington Post
February 21, 2008
Who’s Cooking What Online
The big wide world of the Web is in constant motion, which means you practically need running shoes to keep up with the latest greatest sites, blogs and multimedia extravaganzas. Who would have thought just a few years ago we’d need “bookmarking” tools like del.icio.us to keep us Web-organized?
The online food universe is no exception; in spite of my Web-surfing vigilance, I often find myself up to my eyeballs with new designs, site navigation, whiz-bang databases and embedded videos.
Below, a short list of Web kitchen destinations that have caught my roving eye over the past few months. It takes a village to stay hip and Web-groovy, so please share your online food faves in the comments area below.
Today is chat day; join me at 1 ET for What’s Cooking Vegetarian.
You can use the Web to find a date, a dog sitter or a plumber. Why not use it to find fellow cooks? That’s the mission behind Loulies and Cooking With Friends, two relatively new sites organizing cooking clubs, both virtually and in living color.
The brainchild of Bettina Stern and Suzanne Simon, longtime friends who both live in Georgetown, Loulies started out with its “Cook the Book Club,” an online community of cooks experimenting every month from a designated cookbook. Participants share experiences and exchange notes, riffing on the ups and downs of the book. More recently, the duo has launched a weekly (and sometimes a twice-weekly) “e-bite,” a culinary brief on a producer, ingredient or something equally delicious from their kitchens.
Similarly, Cooking With Friends focuses on the power of community and how it can be harnessed through the Web. Former Washington Post tech columnist Shannon Henry, joined forces with her friend Alison Bermack to build on Bermack’s original idea to bring mothers together under one roof and cook their hearts out. The fledgling site includes tips and advice on starting a local cooking community, with recipes and a blog from both Henry’s and Bermack’s kitchens, in Denver and northern New Jersey, respectively.
For everything but the kitchen sink, you must visit Culinate, which is quickly becoming the hottest online kitchen around. With every visit, I am greeted with not one, but several new things to check out and read. If you like staying current on sustainability, seasonality, food politics and trends (but without an attitude), this site is for you. Such smart, tasty writing. More, please.
For prettiest site, I crown Delicious Days the winner. Wowee zowee, this is major eye candy, the genius of Nicky and Oliver, a couple living in Munich, Germany. It has kind of a Donna Hays soothing look and feel, but hipper and more first-person experiential. Cookbooks, ingredients and food in the news dominate.
Read the article at www.washingtonpost.com