Website Launch: My Recipe Box

A little while ago, Katie of Making Food and Other Stuff (a newly minted Biology PhD!) posted about a "nerdy" purchase: a piece of software to store and organize her recipes. I commented that Sweetie has been on my case for years to make an application like that for us, and asked if I would get extra nerd points if I coded it myself. The nerd points were duly granted.

But I quickly realized that my bonus nerd points would be revoked if I didn't follow through. So this weekend I bunkered down and actually churned out the code. And while I was at it, I stole some a lot of Sweetie's code for secure user accounts, so everyone else can use it too.

Now. It is my pleasure to introduce to you, the one, the somewhat unique, [drumroll] Recipe Box Website.


Well, it looks more impressive in real life. I swear.

The basic idea is that you can store all your recipes, and organize them by applying labels for easy access later. On the general Browse page you can see all the recipes you've entered and a "tag cloud" of labels you've applied to them. You can also import the recipes of other users, and they will appear in your "box" to be searched and sorted just like the ones you authored (but you can't edit them, because they do belong to someone else).


Above is a screenshot of the basic recipe page. For example, here's a link to the recipe I use for bagels:
http://www.bookwyrms.com/recipebox/recipe.php?r=f. Anyone can view it, even if they don't have an account...you just need one to make a box of your own.

And here's the search page, where you can find recipes by titles or the ingredients used.

This searches your own box by default, but you can search the recipes of all users too if you want to expand your collection. I don't expect most people will want to, though, because by the time they get to the storage stage they've already picked out favorites. And there are much more extensive sources for new recipes, like cooking magazines or blogs.

At the last second I made a little "bonus" too....


You can choose from different color schemes in the "Site Preferences." This blue one is Sweetie's favorite, though he's also bizarrely partial to the pink "Princess" theme.

Not to sell myself short (Sweetie says I should stop being so "female" when it comes to advertising myself), but there are some things the site cannot do: for one, you can't upload pictures of your recipes. Technically, I have the code to do it, but (a) I'd have to store the images, and though we own a piece of a server I don't want to push it when that piece has to accommodate all of our projects, and (b) most people don't need to look at pictures of their own meals. You use blogs or sites like AllRecipes if you want to advertise your creations to other people...you don't attach photos to the index cards in your recipe box (unless they came with the newspaper clipping). You also can't import recipes directly from other sites, because there are just too many possibilities to accommodate. And finally, you can't interface with Facebook or Twitter like every other website on the planet. This is just a personal prejudice of mine...I find it skeevy that Mark Zuckerberg is oozing into every corner of our lives. And I hate that the websites I use are always trying to advertise my every move on my wall, sometimes without asking.

Anyway, in conclusion, "Tadaaa!" Check it out, if you have the time or inclination. It would be nice to see some other user accounts pop up for my creation.