Tastebook - Custom Cookbooks

[eskay]

I just heard about this site. Tastebook is a service that lets users take recipes from sites (I think just epicurious at the moment) and make a cookbook, which they can then pay to get printed copies of for themselves or to share. The site says it's $35 for a book with 100 recipes.

I think it's a really neat idea and while I haven't tried playing with the site yet I might find myself doing so in the future. What do you think?

[Bueno]

Tastebook

[Peter the eater]

The concept sounds feasible, and the graphics look competent although lacking in personality, which is where the buyer comes in I guess. I imagine there will be lots of takers, but not me.

[Daniel Rogov]

Reminds me of the old joke:

Q: What's the first step in making a chicken soup?

A: Steal a chicken

Playing on that:

Q: What's the first step in writing your own cookbook

A: Steal 100 recipes

[Chris Hennes]

I had never heard of TasteBook until a few minutes ago when another member mentioned them in the "Are Your Cookbooks Dirty or Clean?" topic.

It's been a few years since they started, and it looks like they have a lot of different publishers on board. And I think even better than that is the possibility of using them to enter in your own favorite recipes and getting them bound up for you. Does anyone else have any experience with them?

[thatjewcancook]

I was the poster in the "dirty or clean" thread. I love Tastebook. Almost all the recipes were ones I typed in, although many are copied from magazines or other cookbooks.

I find its a great service to not only keep my recipes organized, but also to share with others. Many of the ones, I leave private since I either copied them, or 'borrowed' a nice image from the web. In this case, the recipe is for my own use, I don't feel comfortable with having those out in the wild (it wouldn't be fair to the originators).

Lately TasteBook has gotten a little picky when it comes to certain 'key words' that may indicate plagiarism, eg I wanted to transcribe a Bobby Flay recipe from his Throwdown Show (it was actually his competitors arroz con pollo recipe), and it wouldn't let me save it with the words "Bobby Flay" in it (B. Flay worked just fine though )

Where the sharing comes in handy, is that I order books for my friends and family, and then send them recipes from time to time. It's a little pricey, but in the end it works out great for everyone -- and the best part is you can do it piecemeal since its basically just a fancy binder....

Hope this helps...