Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Calling all cooks

At Hallmark Magazine I had a great group of home cooks who signed on to be a recipe test panel. Every month or so I sent a handful of recipes to them for testing, and they would write back with their thoughts and suggestions.

The object of the exercise was 1) to create a community of cooks, but 2) to find out how people put their personal spins on food. Even those cooks who claim to slavishly follow recipes will usually say "Oh, well I added just a bit more cinnamon" or "I didn't have any pears around so I used apples." or "I'm not a fan of thyme so I used tarragon."

I'm a big believer in personal spin.

So I am going to continue this tradition. If you are at all interested in participating in this just shoot me an email with TEST PANEL in the subject line. I'll add you to the mailing list.

The way it will work is this: I'll email 2 or 3 recipes with proposed posting dates (though this will have to be flexible). Then when I'm ready to post the recipe, I'll let the Test Panel know the day before so that anyone who has tried the recipe can come here and add his/her two cents.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Belonging to the Test Panel in no way obligates you to test anything. You only do so if you like the recipe and are in the mood.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Kate,
    Glad you started this blog
    Smiles, deena

    ReplyDelete
  2. good to see you as a writer. I always beleive that people must teach others and speak to others so that there is a sense of control in the minds of all citizens.

    Your topic is different from mine but you are quite informative and educative.

    Good humanism !

    ReplyDelete
  3. is beer included in testing?

    ReplyDelete