I got there just in time to catch the true release of Cookstr.com’s beta site going live. Received an email about the new site a while back from a publisher friend who keeps up with internet book sales venues and thought this one might be worth a look-see. My interest was originally tapped by the prospect of maybe hyping Janis Owen’s new book The Cracker Kitchen (due out Feb 09) but there’s not one cracker-type southern lard-related Daddy just-shot-it recipe on Cookstr. This new cooking site is pure Jamie Oliver, Dan Barber, and the like – pure big time publishing folks who have silver palates and not shiny pretty silver-colored aluminum beer can tastebuds. Pro-fesh-onal chefs who sell NYT bestseller-list-size amounts of cookbooks feature recipe teasers (buy the book for more good tastes!) and such appear on the site. Now, Cracker Kitchen might just make the NYT list, don’t get me wrong, but possum stew is Joy of Cooking cookbook fodder from the good old days and not new-voh stuff.
The site is impressive in its simplicity. That won’t last for long. Once the ads start glomming up the works in a couple months, the Dead Mule look of “photo-article-info only” will be gone. The site will be awash with fluh, the flotsam Jetsons of Google adsense and big publishing houses pimping page purchases.
Meanwhile, enjoy the site. Surprise yourself with a recipe sample – the one I am so very not going to cook involved parsnips and included a warning about how burning hot sugars get when heated – others appear more tasty. I honest to God have had a bag of parsnips in my refrigerator for over two months. If I could remember what possessed me to buy them, they’d be made into that thing… seems they might have been purchased to illustrate parsnip size to Mom but that may be the turnips or the pomegranates in the other fridge drawer.