America gets fired up over online recipe videos
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Dusty, cumbersome cookbooks may become a thing of the past. Technology is now enabling home chefs to experience a new joy of cooking with the advent of video recipe web sites, the hottest trend in culinary instruction. Appealing to the do-it-yourself spirit of today’s consumers, video recipes take cookbooks to the next level, allowing plugged-in chefs to easily visualize techniques and tricks that can make or break a meal, or take simple weeknight pasta from flimsy to fantastico. More than just straightforward recipes, users watch chefs as they explain each step, show helpful tips and discuss how and where to source ingredients, often with an emphasis on locally grown, farm-fresh fare.
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But with such a dizzying array of food-centric sites, finding the best ones can be tricky. Some sites, like CrashTestKitchen.com, put an amateur spin on instructional videos, with regular folks fixing dinner at home. No-nonsense VegTV.com brings bite-sized clips of healthy food advice to couch potatoes and serial dieters. When it comes to the cream of the crop, however, the pickins are slim, with just a few sites rising to the top.
San Diego-based InYourKitchen.com has emerged as a leader in the field, bringing together the nation’s top restaurant chefs and nationally recognized food and wine authorities in an all high-definition video site that is hosted by rising young chef Diane Stopford. Members watch as chefs invite them into their kitchens to give clear, easy to follow instruction on re-creating signature dishes at home. The HD quality produces a crystal clear picture, and the specially shot videos are made to be easily stopped and started when actually cooking at home. What’s more, members can opt to have the recipes’ ingredient lists sent to their cell phones or PDAs with a simple click of the mouse, enabling an ease of shopping heretofore unavailable.
The easy-to-navigate video library is peppered with links to luxury food purveyor and partner Dean & DeLuca (www.DeanDeLuca.com) for quick online shopping as well. Though many of the videos feature recipes from international cuisines, InYourKitchen.com has teamed up with Parade magazine in connection with Parade’s ongoing series “What America Eats,” featuring favorite comfort foods such as bacon burgers and meatloaf. Like many video recipe sites, InYourKitchen.com is both a library of videos and community of cooks, meaning members can submit their own clips for posting, as well as learn from the professionals and experts.
Well-known sites such as foodnetwork.com are also using video recipes, but not nearly as frequently or efficiently as InYourKitchen.com. A main difference with many of the other cooking sites that feature videos is that the videos are frequently re-purposed from television segments from shows on the sponsoring networks. As such, they are not always clearly viewed on the limiting size of the computer screen and cooking along can be a challenge, given the way that they are shot.
No-frills WeChef.com takes its cue from the Slow Food movement, which is all about avoiding the lure of all-too-easily gotten fast food, offering instead seasonal, fresh dishes. The site offers diverse tastes that are beyond the basics, including dishes such as fresh fava beans with shaved Pecorino, blood orange and beet salad, and how-to guides for serious foodies on making mayonnaise and chicken stock from scratch.
Traditional print magazines are also cooking, with a selection of videos on Epicurious.com, which culls recipes from both Bon Appétit and Gourmet. You can learn how Bobby Lloyd of New York’s Magnolia Bakery makes her sinful red cupcakes—if you’re willing to endure an advertisement first.
All said there are many options for America’s home cooks, from the armchair enthusiast to the weekend warrior. But only InYourKitchen.com offers the full 360-degree cooking experience. At InYourKitchen.com, cooking is made both easy and fun. With clear HD videos, favorite restaurant chefs and recipes and the technological advances which make shopping for ingredients a breeze, InYourKitchen.com is clearly becoming the cookbook of choice now and into the future.
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