Rewriting the Recipe Search Rules

By Warren Rojas

Courtesy of CookThink

After fumbling through one too many Internet recipe sites with little satisfaction, childhood buddies Chip Brantley and Brys Stephens decided to go back to basics.

“We were consistently disappointed with the websites out there,” Brantley said of their browsing experiences, noting that the overwhelming amount of online and televised reality/celebrity/competitive cooking content is great, but that it often turns out to be more entertaining than educational.

“People still have to come home and cook,” he asserted. Out of their frustration was born Cookthink—a free online tool (set to launch this June) billed as “a more ingredient-focused, personalized site for those who enjoy wholesome cooking.”

“We spent a lot of time thinking about how cooking breaks down,” Stephens explained, noting that he devoted months to personally testing and photographing the everyday dishes that make up the brunt of their evolving recipe database.

“We realized that there’s a deficit out there for the simplicity of it,” Stephens said of Cookthink’s bare-bones cooking approach. “We believe everything can be good.”

Each recipe search will lead to a new page featuring the dish title, a photo (a finished dish or a dish in preparation), required ingredients, cooking time, tools needed and step-by-step instructions. Meanwhile, clickable sidebars will provide additional background material/tutorials about the individual ingredients and alternative cooking techniques.

Users will also be able to save, amend and ultimately share their favorite recipes via private My Cookthink pages. And the innovative “meal builder” function will allow recipe hounds to plan multi-course feasts with a built-in timer that coordinates the cooking time, in order, of each desired dish.

Initially, the site will feature four main search functions:
»Ingredients—a from-scratch guide based on what you’ve got handy (broccoli, rice)
»Dish—combining individual items and well-known preparations (stir-fry, burrito)
»Cuisine—assorted cooking styles (Asian, Mediterranean) and,
»Mood—suggestions based on emotive “craving” profiles (hearty, comfort).

(June/July 2007)

Tags: Chew on this, recipe