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CULINARY RELIEF
New food sites aim to streamline recipe searching for home cooks
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A few months ago, a website called What The &%$! Should I Make For Dinner?
became a viral hit. While the novelty of it was admittedly mildly
amusing, the random recipe suggestions were less than appetizing.
Fortunately, there are a number of other new online resources to come
to the rescue when faced with the dilemma of culinary indecision.
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Yummly:
Though consumers have grown accustomed to intelligent services that can
deliver entertainment suggestions based on past preferences and search
histories (think Pandora, iTunes Genius, Netflix),
there has yet to be a culinary equivalent that's found mainstream
popularity. Yummly could just be that service. Like with other recipe
sites, users can customize searches based on ingredients, diet
restrictions, allergies, price, cooking time, and cuisine. But what
sets Yummly apart is its ability to intuit users' taste based on prior
searches. Similar to how Netflix's recommendations become more accurate
the more a user rates films, Yummly gains a better understanding of
each user's food preferences the more they employ it to search. Sure,
one could enter ingredients into Google to try to find a recipe, but
Google isn't going to know about that peanut allergy.
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FoodPair:
Food Network
or Epicurious? Martha Stewart or Real Simple?
Sometimes the decision of what source to use to search for a recipe can
be more daunting than the ensuing kitchen chemistry. FoodPair is a
"metasearch engine" that was created to remove those steps from the
cooking equation. Since, more often than not, homecookin' is comprised
of whatever random ingredients are inhabiting the larder - unless
you're one of those fortunate people who actually has the foresight to
know that they'll want seared scallops with lentils in a balsamic
reduction two days after making a grocery run - the site is structured
so that burgeoning chefs can simply enter in whatever ingredients they
have instead of digging for a specific recipe. FoodPair then conducts a
comprehensive search across a vast selection of cooking sites, like
those mentioned, as well as others like Cookstr and Whole Foods' recipe repository. Of course, if your fridge looks like this, you might be in trouble.
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NonaBrooklyn:
So, you've got the recipe, but what if you'd prefer to source the
ingredients from neighborhood vendors in lieu of wheeling a cart up and
down the frosty, fluorescent lit aisles of the supermarket? Thanks to
the boom in locavorism,
what was once an underground artisanal food movement has now become a
mainstay. Giving those who like to keep their kitchen stocked with
whatever goods are produced within, say, five miles rather than within 100,
NonaBrooklyn is one of the first online hubs for locavore foodies
within a specific community. Members can create profiles to network
with likeminded eaters, as well as receive up-to-date news directly
from local chefs, restaurants, specialty shops, and other food
luminaries. While a lot of oversharing jokes are made at the expense of
those who can't make a dish out of backyard produce without telling all
of Facebook about it, this is one social network where photos of
homegrown heirloom tomato tarts will not only be welcomed, but also
relished.
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* References to products and services in trendcentral do not imply our endorsement, but rather are intended to provide objective insights into emerging trends and examples of those trends. trendcentral is published by The Intelligence Group, a trend research and consumer insights company focusing on youth culture. For more information on our services, or to subscribe to our syndicated Cassandra Report studies, please contact Alina Goncalves at 212-277-5299 or via email at agoncalves@intelg.com.
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