Favourite Food Websites

As a foodie, a cook, an eater, and a techie, I love the internet. Its such an amazing space, and its really wide ranging in terms information, inspiration and help. I have, as most people do, a few websites I visit on a regular basis. Some every day, some, as a treat, once a week, to catch up on. All these sites open me up to the food world. I thought I would share some of my best with you – and explain why I love them so. I have divided my websites into three major sections: Tools (my favourite conversion site, for example, or the best vegetarian food guide site); Recipes (the best, easiest to use and most informative recipe sites around); and Personal (blogs, rantings and ravings about food). Here are my top in each section.

Tools

I do like About.com … they have such a myriad of topics, and each one is quite in depth and detailed. I love their conversion calculator because when I need to figure out what fahrenheit is in celsius or how many cups in a specific number of millilitres, and I need to do it quickly, this is the page that does it for me. For conversions, I also use Google – on their home page, you can just type… “170 c in f” and immediately, it will convert 170 celsius into 338 fahrenheit without you having to do much else! Brilliant.

When I am cooking, and realise oh damn, I thought I had 4 eggs, but I only have 2 – or the recipe calls for a certain spice, or ingredient and I dont have it in my larder, I go to Cooking Thesaurus. It is an awesome site that helps you figure out what foods you can use as substitutes. Its got a great search mechanism, and is really easy to use. Thousands and thousands of substitutions. How useful is that? And they are very systematic. Take an egg for instance. When you want to substitute an egg for dipping before breading, its very different than if you want to substitute an egg in a cake – they carefully go through all the various permutations.

And for all things vegetarian, I love the Vegetarian Resource Group. Their page about Nutrition for Vegetarians is invaluable when you are thinking about the vegetarian diet, and thinking about  ensuring proper nutrition, proteins etc. They have a great link to a pdf file of a  vegetarian food pyramid that I refer to now and then. I do think that most ways of eating should be about balance. I am not going to try and get all my food groups in one day – but this helps me think about what I have (or have not eaten) in that particular week. Though, they need to add chocolate at the top of the pyramid! The Vegetarian Resource group also has a brilliant recipe page that I love scrolling through…Inspiration for the veggie mind. And their links page is truly comprehensive.

Recipes

For all around food extravaganza, there is nothing else online like Epicurious. It is seriously a huge, sometimes overwhelming website. Its recipe section alone archives the late, lamented and beloved Gourmet magazine, as well as Bon Apetit. It has forums, chatrooms, and you can sign up and have your own Epicurious profile with saved recipes. Its got video, shopping lists, mobile apps. Its truly epic. But I use it mainly for its recipes. Type in any search term – chocolate for instance – and thousands of recipes will be returned. The width and breadth of recipes and sources is truly astounding. I love to read the user comments – home cooks who actually have cooked the recipe before, and they are often spot on about substitutions, adjustments, baking times, etc. Such a great community.

I also love Saveur magazine’s website. Another extensive recipe resource, with wonderful sections on kitchen gadgets and technique. Saveur is definitely not vegetarian-centric, but its a great place for inspiration.

Food & Wine, on the other hand, has literally thousands of vegetarian recipes. I love their clean layout, easy to understand recipes and navigation. And their images are totally droolworthy.

And finally, I love The Kitchn – a satellite site from Apartment Therapy. Great recipes, articles, inspiration – in a very easy, modern, funky layout. I dont go to The Kitchn when I am searching for a specific recipe, but I include it here because it is such a wonderful place to go and read recipes. Everything has a story, and I want to try each and every idea they come up with. Small, but very readable.

Personal

I have so many personal favourite cooking websites, that I couldnt narrow them down to just a few. So here is my condensed list. I hope you enjoy!

• Ballymaloe Cooking School – I often go to this site and just daydream. Its where I am going to cooking school next year. I cant wait.
• Ruth Reichl’s blog – some of her great recipes, her wonderful food writing, and her clear, passionate voice. I love her blog – and also her Twitter feed. She was the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, and oh this woman loves food.
• Huffington Post’s Food feed. A great, current collection of food news – I read this every day.
• Oh I ADORE Dorie Greenspan’s blog. This woman is totally immersed in her passion for cooking – especially baking and pastries. Every day, every post, exhilarates the senses. Moving between France and the US, she is a nomad who writes about the world around her. She has written 10 cookbooks, including two with Pierre Herme (yes, macarons), one with Daniel Bolud, and one with Julia Child. Her blog is passionate, generous and so so tasty. I also follow her Twitter. Yum.
• I love 101 Cookbooks’ blog too. Heidi Swanson is inspired by food – mainly vegetarian – and cooks from her extensive cookbook collection. She makes delicious looking, exciting dishes that seem at once wonderful and approachable. I love her stories and comfortable voice. I also follow her on Twitter!
• Cannelle et Vanille – its just so damn pretty!!! I look at this site when I want to smile.
• Three restaurant websites – mainly to drool over their menus! Chez Panisse (Alice Walters), The French Laundry (Thomas Keller), and El Bulli (Ferran Adria).
• And the most accessible vegetarian eating guide – Happy Cow. I love this site, and whenever I visit a new place, I always check out whats good in the vegetarian scene through them.

I have others, but I dont want to overwhelm you 😉 I am sure I will do another favourite links post, but for now, enjoy these! I know I do!

Tags: favourite, food, links, resource, restaurants, reviews, vegan, vegetarian