Blog Notes
Appearances
I have a few appearances coming up, and if you’re around, please come by and say hi…
-August 5: Borders Books, New York City – 7pm (That’s this week!)
-September 25: La Cocotte, Paris – 3 to 5pm
You can find more information about them on my Schedule page. That’s all I have planned so if I’m not coming to where you are, hop on the plane and I’ll see you here—or there!
Recipe Use and Attribution
Food writer Laurie Colwin once said something along the lines of, “If it wasn’t for sharing of recipes, humans would not have survived.” Recipes are indeed, wonderful ways not just to ensure that humans will continue to inhabit the earth (although it remains to be seen for how long), and many of us have recipe boxes and notebooks full of cherished recipes.
As an author, I share recipes in my books and on the blog, both of which I’m very happy to do. And I’m flattered when people make my recipes. If you wish to use a recipe from the site or a book on your blog or site, you should ‘adapt’ the recipe, which means that you re-write it in your own words (not taking it word-for-word), adding your personal observations and tips for your readers.
If you have a food blog, your readers likely prefer to see your photos rather than someone else’s. Published books and blogs are copyrighted so recipes should not be reprinted word-for-word from either. If you reprint a recipe from a book verbatim, you should contact the publishing house and get permission. Otherwise you should adapt the recipe, and rewrite it in your own words, as newspapers and magazines do.
For further information and guidelines, you can check out the post I wrote on Recipe Attribution for Food Blog Alliance that goes into more detail.
iPhone App
I’ve been adding a blitz of recipes, videos, and a few others things to my iPhone app. It’s a free download and I’ll be adding more in the future, so head to the App Store and download it today. And watch for a new icon, too.
Social Media
In spite of my frequent anti-social behavior, you can find and follow me on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on my colorful Flickr page.
As much as I’d like to answer and respond to folks, I only have ten fingers (and one puny brain…), so most of my ramblings are exit-only. But I love hearing from you and do my best to keep on top of everything that’s happening.
Videos
I’ve been anxious to make additional videos for the site since the first one we did a few months back, where the kind folks in Paris were happy to give their opinion of my chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a videographer (plus I can’t figure out how to be in front and behind the camera at the same time), but hopefully they will be more videos on the site in the future.
In the meantime, I’ve done videos for two websites that I’m fond of—
Questions
I get lots of questions and I apologize for not being able to answer them all. If you have a question about a post or a recipe on the site, if you leave the question at that post, I answer them there, which I prefer since others may have a similar question and it helps others when I answer in the comments rather than by e-mail.
Many answers can be found at my FAQ page, too, which I update regularly.
Behind-the-Scenes Blog Stuff
I’m in the process of making a big switch with the blog (yikes!), which will be happening sometime later this month. So you might notice some bumps and bruises as you cruise around the site but not to worry; hopefully all will go off without a hitch.
There will probably be a few changes to the site, including a revamp of my Recipes page. A number of you have inquired about adding a print option to the site, and to recipes. In order to do that, I’d have to go back and re-format 1041 entries. And that probably sounds as fun to you as it does to me.
There are ‘print on demand’ sites, such as Print What You Like, as well as others, that allow you to, well…print what you like. (Duh!) So you can use one if there’s something you’d like printed out. Unless you have a few spare weeks to reformat my blog posts.
If there’s any features you’d like to see added to the site, let me know in the comments section.
Hope you’re all having a good summer!
-David
