The 10 Day Joy of Food Series - Day Four: Food on Social Media

In the last couple of posts in this series on the joy of food, we talked about organizing your recipes and finding inspiration to branch out with your cooking. It’s easy to get bored with the same old food, but as you saw in the last email, just a couple of small changes can lead to big results.

One of the great things about social networks is how easy it is to share recipes and ideas. We all have to eat; it is just a question of what. While it’s true that delivery is easier than ever before, it’s also true that people have started taking more of an interest in cooking because they see delicious-looking recipes in a number of places and want to try them.

Recipe Websites

The most obvious place to start is one of the many free recipes websites. Choose the ones with the highest ratings. Look up recipes you’ve always wanted to learn how to make. Or, search by cuisine, such as Italian or Chinese, to broaden your horizons. Your teen has just announced they’re vegetarian? Search for recipes that everyone will be willing to eat.

You can also look at your favorite chef’s website for free recipes. Emeril, Rachael Ray, and others, all have free recipes available.

Facebook and More

Facebook is the largest social network in the world, so it’s no surprise they have millions of members interested in talking about food and hundreds of food-related groups. Some of the ideas are a bit hit and miss, though, so find a couple of groups with recipes that look appetizing and try them. Once you’ve been in the group for a while, you should also be able to find cooks you can trust.

The same is true of digital cookbook authors. Some "cookbooks" are just thrown together by content farmers who copy and paste 100 chicken recipes from Allrecipes or similar sites without any regard for the rating on the recipe or how well it’s written. Then you end up with a mess on your hands because an ingredient is missing, or a measurement is wrong. In fact, always use common sense when it comes to measurements in fractions, because different computers and browsers can render them differently, changing the numbers or producing random squiggles.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, you might also find recipe inspiration on Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest. Pinterest is extremely lively - the only trouble is organizing all the recipes you find and not spending too much time on the site, because you’ll run out of time to cook!

These are just a few of the places you can get recipes and inspiration from. In the next post, we'll look at some of the most popular apps for foodies.

Until next time!