Edibabble

The name…

Edibabble is a combination of the words “edible” and “babble” meaning to babble on about edibles.  And let’s face it, blogs are typically a lot of self-indulgent babble.  This one is sure to be no different.

The concept…

The concept is simple.  This is a blog for me (and a few others) to journal about cooking, baking, and different recipes we’ve tried, where we found them, how we modified them, and what worked and what didn’t.  It also then serves as a repository for our recipes, so that we can quickly and easily find them and share them. It comes from the fact that I’ve made several things this year that worked, and then later went back to make them again and couldn’t figure out which of the thousands of recipes on the web was the one I used.  Bookmarking could work, but then the bookmark is only on the one computer that was used to bookmark it.  And there’s no way to add notes or customizations that we did.  It’s much easier for me to do it in wordpress.

There are lots of recipe sites (good ones).  Of course.  But this one is different because it’s ours.  I wouldn’t even categorize this site as a recipe site.  It is a blog in the truest since of the word.  It’s a journal or a diary and I honestly can say that I don’t care if anyone outside my circle ever reads anything that we put here or not.  So you won’t find any ads on here at all – because there’s no point.  It is really just for me and mine.  If others ‘tune in’ and find it useful, good for them.  But the whole point is for it to be a reference back to me to remember how to make the things that I make the most often.

Structure and copyright issues…

First off, we don’t want to infringe on anyone’s rights by reprinting recipes here.  However, the purpose of the site is to be an easy place to find the recipes I used most often.  Therefore the actual recipes have to be included.  This is a digital version of the recipe box, passed down to future generations.  So what we will try to do is reference the original and give credit where it’s due.  But gosh darn-it we can’t control the stability of other websites, and I don’t intend on losing a standard recipe just because some other website goes down.  So in addition to including links to the originating site, we will have it here in some form.  But we’re also discussing our experience making the dish, show photos of our process when possible, and cover whatever modifications we’ve tried.  Again, it’s not a commercial site and there are no ads.  We’re not making money from other people’s recipes, only making food from them.

As for structure, I think we’ll eventually fall into a somewhat standard pattern.  But here are some ideas I have about the whole thing..

• Process – To me the process is equally as important as the ingredients.  You can’t make a souffle without the proper process.  I hate it when I find a recipe that assumes you know how to do something.  So for my own benefit, I’ll go over process and steps in as much detail as I can handle writing.
• Re-tries – A typical blog has new entries based on dates, with the newest entries at the top.  This one is no different.  However if I go back and try a recipe again I’m not going to create a new entry for it.  Instead I just want to add to the bottom of the current entry.  Otherwise it’ll make it too difficult to find different variations I’ve tried.  And unless the variation becomes different enough to be a different dish, it’s all going in the same entry.  So, when I update an entry I will also modify the post date to bump it back to the top.
• Not a recipe dump – Again this is not a general recipe site, it’s a journal.  So I’m not adding every recipe that I find online or that some crazy aunt give me.  foodnetwork.com and other sites are great for that.  This is about experience.. what we’ve tried and how it worked.  What we liked and didn’t.  And so when someone says “can I have your recipe for…” we can just say “edibabble.com“
• Searches, Tags, & Categories – This site is useless if you can’t search it and easily find exactly what you’re looking for.  So the goal is to use lots of tags and keep to specific categories.  Over tag entries.  Add tags for ingredients, which meal of the day, what kind of food, where the inspiration came from, etc.  Then for categories have less and keep them much broader.  Examples of categories are Dinner and Italian.  But tags could be garlic, onion, or pasta…
• Multiple authors – I think it will be fun to log in and see other family member’s recipes and new experiences journaled on the home page.  My “not a dump” rule does not mean that other’s can’t share their wealth of goodies instructables also.  We welcome it.  And if you’re interested let me know and I’ll set you up with a password.  (hey, we can always filter your stuff out if you post too much .)  No seriously, I’m sure you understand the spirit of the game.  Post on eats that you actually make.
• Multiple authors part 2 – What to do when multiple people make or try the same (or each other’s) recipes… There are two correct answers: One way to handle it is to add the 2nd author’s comments to the same post, the second way is to have multiple posts, one for each person’s variations and experiences. Name the posts as descriptively as possible and we’ll be fine.

So hopefully this will work and will be useful and fun.  -Michael