 |
by Ruby Licona
|
Looking for information on food
and cooking on the Web can be dangerous. . . to your health, time and
pocketbook! Granted, there are healthy cooking sites, but
the other ones look so much tastier. And you can spend soooooooo
much time and money looking around on specialty food and kitchen
equipment sites. . . Forewarned is forearmed, so proceed with caution.
Granddaddy Sites:
epicurious
FOOD for people who eat (http://epicurious.com)
Allows you to set up a personal recipe box, search recipes, access to
Epicurious Television, Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines, cooking
basics, a food dictionary, etiquette, weekly cookbook reviews,
restaurant recipes. . .
iVillage
food (http://www.ivillage.com/food/) Menu
maker gives you all the information you need to get dinner on the table
in 30 unbelievable minutes or less, also suggests daily menus. "Ask
the ....." columns allow the posing of questions to bakers, cooks,
nutritionists, and dieticians. There's also a "Dilemma of the
Week" to which we can all relate and $$$$ saving suggestions
and coupons.
Cooking
(http://cooking.com) Great site that gives you a recipe accompanied
by a suggested menu, the appropriate wines, and if a recipe call for a
special piece of equipment, will tell you where/how it can be purchased.
Allows for product/brand searches. Cooking school section provides
a glossary of ingredients, equipment or techniques.
Holiday Sites:
Thanksgiving
Recipes (http://thanksgivingrecipe.com) Everything you
ever wanted to know about how to roast a turkey, cran a cranberry, or
deal with tons of leftovers. Great links for information on what
to do if your guests don't eat meat. Cooking hints , featured recipes,
several complete menu choices. Links to Allrecipes.com.
Aristotle's
Thanksgiving site (http://www.aristotle.net/thanksgiving)
Magically turn leftovers into gourmet meals. Find out how to set
a pretty table, send Thanksgiving cards inline, get information on the
Macy's parade or link to the Butterball page for a last-minute rescue
for your holiday feast. You can also link to the Great Pumpkin Recipe
Page for pumpkin soup or pumpkin pancakes!
Christmas
Recipes (http://christmasrecipe.com) This site is also
from Allrecipes.com Get a leg-up on planning your
Christmas meals---for Christmas dinner, parties, whatever. Or, if
you have no idea what to plan, try playing Christmas recipe roulette and
see what fun menu the site recommends for you. Allrecipes.com will
also be opening Allholiday.com will be available in the near future.
Hanukkah
Recipes (http://allrecipes.com/hanukkah.asp).
A great site for learning all about the significance of Hanukkah and the
foods that are traditionally served to celebrate it! While most
of the recipes seem pretty authentic, there has been some present-day
license exercised - for example, there is a recipe for potato latkes,
but, there is also one for sweet-potato latkes.
Store Sites:
many stores have websites, these
are just a couple of good ones to look at first.
Williams
- Sonoma (http://williamssonoma.com) Great place to
shop for equipment, find recipes and how-to information for things like
how to make a perfect food-processor pie crust. Provides great
gift ideas and seasonal features and promotions. Also sells some
specialty foods.
Dean
and DeLuca (http://www.deandeluca.com)This site is a
gourmet/gourmand's delight!! One can order everything from soup
to nuts here -- caviar, meats from the butcher shop, vinegars, truffles,
chocolates and candies, herbs and spices, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!
You'll also find gifts and just about any kind of kitchenware you can
think up.
Shopping for Food:
There are many ways to buy food
on the net: look for sites on any of the internet directory/search
engine shopping links under food, gourmet, diet, nutrition, etc.
And check out any addresses you may find in women's and cooking magazines
-- some of the sites are lots of fun to look at even if you don't order
anything. There are places where you can order ingredients and there
are ones where you can order full meals already prepared:
Homesick
Gourmets/Gourmands (http://homesickgourmet.com)
This is the place, especially for those among us who lament not being
able to buy certain foods to which we became addicted when living in another
region of the country! One can find a webpage to order seafood from
the Gulfcoast, Eli's Cheesecake or Giordano's Pizza from Chicago, TastyKakes
from Philadelphia, and smoked salmon from Seattle!!! AHHHHH!
Also includes gift ideas like "Aprons you'll never see on
Martha" and "Food and Cooking Oriented jewelry."
Prepared
Gourmet Meals (http://cookexpress.com) These folks claim
to "shop, chop, mince, marinate & deliver!" What more
could one ask for? For a price they will send to you a Thanksgiving
meal of turkey with cranberry-sage stuffing, sweet potato flan and a cranberry
compote (along with gravy, flavored butters, etc.) and they provide you
a list of ingredients that you will need to have on hand to complete the
preparation and presentation of the dinner for two, four, or six.
Now, if they only included a little elf to magically do the dishes and
clean up the mess in the kitchen!!!!!
Television Cooking:
While many of the cooking shows
on TV will have their own sites, included here are just a couple of cooking
feature sections from local (Salt Lake City) morning and news programs
and one particularly good national link.
Eyewitness
News (http://ksl.com/TV/recipes/recipes.htm) Recipes
presented on the channel 5 Eyewitness News at Noon program. The
master index lists recipes back to 1996, however, these are arranged chronologically
so if you're interested in a particular recipe you'll have to look at
the category listings.
Gabby
Gourmet (http://kutv.com/gabby/) Recipes from KUTV's
Fred Wix, the Gabby Gourmet. Archive includes recipes back to mid-1997.
Chef
on a Shoestring (http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/earlyshow/saturday/chef/main3441.shtml)
Just search for Chef on a Shoestring to find recipes from the
CBS Saturday Morning program. The idea here is that a chef is given
$20 to buy everything s/he needs to prepare a complete meal - - appetizer,
main course and dessert!!! The recipe archive has information and
menus back to March 1998 including the chef, the restaurant where s/he
works, the items prepared and a shopping list with a price breakdown.
Buying Cookbooks on the Net:
Many of the sites already mentioned
may include cookbook review and/or cookbooks for sale. Or, one can
always go to an online "bookstore" to find particular titles.
Company and Brandname Sites:
Many companies have sites where
they post recipes, promotional savings/coupons and suggestions for how
to use their products. The following are just some of the sites
found in one set of ads in a Sunday newspaper.
My Favorite Site:
CHOCOLATE!
(http://virtualchocolate.com)Ahhhhhh! Chocolate!
What else is there to say? This site lets you send real or virtual
chocolates to a friend, download chocolate computer wallpapers, send virtual
chocolate postcards, and register to become a certified chocoholic!!!!
Visit with the chocolate muse and learn the rules of chocolate, e.g.,
"If you've got melted chocolate all over your fingers, you're eating
it too slowly!" Or, you can join the chocolate club and order
a t-shirt that explains the 12-step program for chocoholics -
"NEVER BE MORE
THAN 12 STEPS AWAY FROM CHOCOLATE!"
