A CS.com cookbook?

[MaggieTheCat]

Okay, so, we have a lot of cooks here on cs.com. I've seen a lot of "need help with a recipe" or "cooking advice?" type threads over the years that I've been here. Has anyone ever considered doing a cs.com cookbook? We could take a collection of everyone's favorite recipe(s) and put them together in an actual, physical book that people could buy (a small fee for the cost of printing.) Depending on how big we wanted to make it, we could put memorable quotes, signatures, or short posts throughout the book as well.

I have never done this. I've seen books like this, that are collections of recipes from groups, like families or church groups, but I've never actually made one or even participated in making one, so I have no idea how difficult or expensive this would get. If someone has done this and would like to share their experiences, please do!

Would anyone be interested in doing something like this?

[csquared]

Someone who is more familiar with the workings of the forum might be able to create a sub forum/tread hierarchy to organize them. i.e Meat, Veg, Desert, etc. Good use of tags can help in searching for things like low cal, low carb, low salt, vegan, kosher.

Once we have a collection, someone can turn it into a printable format (PDF?) for members to download. Or we can find a web site that does print on demand and sell it.

What would really be fun is to give each dish a "sucky" name.

Numbnut chronicles, Pecan pie
Fruit Punch Shower, Fruit Punch

Hmmm. What recipe can we name after Vinegar Boy?

[Amina516]

Maybe a separate forum for recipes? And then from there, collect the best of the best and proceed that way?

I think its a great idea.

[Pedersen]

For the most part, this wouldn't be too hard, as long as you're okay with mostly plain jane stuff.

A cookbook, though, will need sturdy pages (it's going to be in the kitchen, it's going to be actively used, flipped through, splattered, and stained. It still has to be readable after that). In addition, you need to use a spiral type binding. You want the cookbook to stay open and lay flat. Using perfect binding makes it very hard to use the cookbook in the kitchen, as the book keeps trying to close/flip pages.

Color adds to the cost. I would suggest limiting color as much as possible.

Something else to consider: You want this to be available in as many formats as possible. HTML and PDF are good to start. You should also consider a MS Word document, an OpenOffice.org document, and at least a few formats for electronic readers. I would recommend epub, mobipocket, and kindle.

This is very likely to mean using some sort of intermediate format which has translators already written. For instance, a format called "restructured text" can easily output (already) HTML, ePub, and PDF. Additional plugins to output the others would not be hard (and, since I'm thinking of them now, the temptation to get them written is definitely there).

Also, you might consider asking Raps to host a version of it here on the site. It could be kept as a set of static files, so would have pretty well zero impact on server performance.

Oh, one final note: Unless the book is sold at cost, profits have to go somewhere. A question to answer as early as possible is "Who gets the money?"

[MaggieTheCat]

Good things to point out Pedersen, thank you. I was thinking too that having a PDF/HTML version would be good as a free download for people who don't want an actual physical book. I don't know anything about how to make a file for an electronic reader, but I'm sure someone here does, or we could ask my husband, who may or may not know but could probably figure it out if we needed.

As far as profit, I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking that we could just sell it at cost, to keep the cost as low as possible for people who want an actual physical book.

[BookstoreEscapee]

We could include some of the more, uh, memorable posts from the restaurant world...to remind us why we should stay home and cook for ourselves

[Aethian]

As far as profit...well it does cost money to host this place does it not?

[jedimaster91]

Oh, one final note: Unless the book is sold at cost, profits have to go somewhere. A question to answer as early as possible is "Who gets the money?"

As far as profit...well it does cost money to host this place does it not?

I had the same thought as Aethian. If there are profits, it would be great to use them to keep the site running. It might save Raps a few bucks, which I'm sure he won't mind.

[MaggieTheCat]

That's a good idea, putting profit toward keeping the site up and running. The other thought I had, if for whatever reason we decide not to do that, would be to donate profit to some form of charity, although we would have to pick a group that everyone, or at least most people who participated, would agree on.

[MaggieTheCat]

If I had help with some of the more technical stuff, like making .pdfs/Word Files/electronic reader files/etc, maybe help getting the formatting down, etc. I could probably handle the organization of the recipes and the distribution of the books, if we needed someone to order a bunch upfront and then ship them out.

Also, is there someone here who is artistically inclined and interested in this project, who could maybe come up with some simple art to incorporate? We'd want at least something for the cover, and possibly small images inside the book. I don't know what though...I suppose we could just do simple images representing the different sections (pies and cakes for the dessert section, eggs and pancakes for breakfast, etc.) Or, if someone has a good idea for some kind of theme that somehow ties CS and food together, that would be even better.

[Magpie]

Hmmm. What recipe can we name after Vinegar Boy?

Pickles of some sort

Just to throw a question out: do we want a cookbook or something less static? Would a "recipes only" subforum (only post the recipe, discussion goes here, one per thread) be more what we want? (I'm not sure it is for me, it crossed my mind though, so I'm sharing).

[MaggieTheCat]

I thought about just a subforum or similar too, and not going with a physical book at all. I don't mind either way, personally; I get about 75% of my recipes online so I'm used to using my laptop as a cookbook in the kitchen. I just thought a physical cookbook would be fun. To anyone who's interested, please let us know which you would prefer more: An actual book, or digital recipes?

[csquared]

Pickles of some sort

Good call!

Just to throw a question out: do we want a cookbook or something less static? Would a "recipes only" subforum (only post the recipe, discussion goes here, one per thread) be more what we want? (I'm not sure it is for me, it crossed my mind though, so I'm sharing).

My thoughts:
As a forum member, the recipes sub-forum is good enough.

If someone put together an interesting format, I might download it, print it and give it to someone.

If someone can find a cost effective way to sell the printed book, I say let Raps use the profits to help pay for the site. I'll probably buy a book to help out.

Lets take it one step at a time. Create the sub-forum. If someone formats a book, great. If someone figures out how to sell the printed book, better still.

[dendawg]

Hmmm. What recipe can we name after Vinegar Boy?

Vinegar Boy Vinaigrette?

[Pedersen]

The technical side (formatting/etc) is easy. Getting multiple formats is easy. Use that restructured text I mentioned earlier, or docbook, and you can output pretty much anything.

I did, however, think of one piece that could throw a bit of a monkey wrench: Every submission must be tracked. Who sent it, when, and everything needs to be verified as much as possible for origin. Why? Copyright. It can be a nasty thing to have to fight.

Just something else to consider.