What's cookin good lookin

I feel that this is not the most exciting or cutting edge web site out there, but I have to say, I freakin' love allrecipes.com. Let me tell you why.

1.) Lots of people use it, so there are a ton of recipes and usually a ton of feedback on those recipes. The feedback is my absolute favorite thing about the site. You can obviously get recipes anywhere, but having 5-500 people leaving comments really helps you to figure out how to perfect the recipe. People who have actually made the dish will leave suggestions about cooking time, a different type of dish or pan to use, a change in technique, or about what ingredients to increase, decrease, add or omit. You also don't have to waste your time making a recipe that a bunch of other people have found to be no good. This feedback is invaluable, especially to a beginner/intermediate cook like myself.

2.) There is a wide variety of recipes. There are some very fancy, gourmet recipes on the site, and there are a lot of very basic, family-friendly type recipes (the type that a lot of people might say are gross or low-class or whatever, but let's face it, that's what a lot of people are eating most days, and frankly a lot of it tastes plenty good). Most of the recipes that I've looked at are good, middle of the road dishes in terms of fanciness and difficulty. In any case, whatever you're looking for is probably on there.

3.) The site has a lot of simple but useful features: you can create your own recipe box to save recipes that you like or want to try; you can upload a photo of a recipe you've made, and view other members' photos; you can print off recipes in a variety of formats; etc.

The only thing that I don't like, which actually led me to write this post, is the hokey-ass terms that so many of the site's members use in their recipe comments. I hate when they use corny words like "zippy" to describe a dish. What does that even mean? I also hate when people say their family/friends/co-workers "gobbled" a dish up, or, similarly, "wolfed it down." I do not need the image of these people as turkeys/wolves, cramming some slop down their pie-holes as fast as they possibly can. Not appetizing at all, thanks. Lastly, the use of the word "hubby" is about to drive me to suicide. I don't even know why, but I HATE it. Is it that much easier to say/type "hubby" than it is "husband?" It's not really a shorter word. It's just so unnecessarily cutesy, and for whatever reason I always imagine the women using it to be the type of women who are totally stupid and fawning/submissive to their men; I think a lot of times I see it in the context of "I made this dish but hubby didn't like it at all; I won't make it again" which makes me think they're just slaving around in the kitchen until they finally find something that Master Hubby approves of.

Anyway. If you like to cook or bake, I do suggest that you check this site out. It has been super, super useful to me and has even earned a place in my bookmarks toolbar thingy. I'm chasemytail on there (natch), although I don't know if I even have a public profile or if you can "friend me" or anything like that.