Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Thing 57: Tastespotting — Yum!

Tastespotting is a delicious and yummy site full of links to food blogs. What sets it apart from other bookmarking sites? If you go to Delicious or Digg or even Google search results, what do you see? Words, lots of lots of words.

Not at Tastespotting. At Tastespotting, you get lots and lots of hyper-linked pictures. Absolutely gorgeous pictures of inspiring, crave-worthy food and kitchen items. They’re added to Tastespotting by members who come across their lusciousness while cruising the Internet or reading RSS feeds. Click the image itself to link to the original blog post, or the small number at the bottom of the image box for a permalink to the Tastespotting post. Most point to recipes, although some are cookware or other inspiring goodies.

Food blogs are an interesting aspect of Web 2.0. They come from a whole spectrum of writers, from personal cooks to food companies. I would love to have a family recipe blog. Growing up, I enjoyed many of my grandma and great-grandma’s dishes, but several recipes were lost along the way – alas! I wish I’d written those recipes down for safekeeping, and a blog would have been a good way to do it.

I have tried several brownie recipes from Tastespotting, and they were great. If we had kitchen facilities at my branch I would certainly have a cooking adventure with my little ones who attend my programs. I have one word of caution – do not visit this site if you are really, really hungry.

P.S.: Tastespotting has a great widget to add to your own blog site so they are just a click away.

Discovery Exercise:

  1. Visit Tastespotting.com.
  2. Find interesting posts, either using the search function or by browsing photos.
  3. Mark a few as favorites, using the star in the bottom right corner of the photo box.
  4. Optional: Add a favorite recipe. (First, find an online recipe with a great photograph, then think about some great, short advertising copy to go with it. Then click the fork beneath the Tastespotting logo. You will have to register, but registration is quick and easy.) Tastespotting is a curated site, so the Powers That Be must approve your post, and it may be up to 24 hours before you see it on the site. Not every post makes it to the front page! The most great posts you submit, the faster your subsequent posts will be approved and the more prominently they will be featured.
  5. Blog about your experience at Tastespotting.
— Jamie, posting for Sandra

1 comment:

Jamie said...

If food's not your thing, check out the other blogs from the creators of TasteSpotting, NOTCOT, NOTCOT.org and NotCouture, all about visual inspiration.