We met five years ago, when Amanda was looking for someone to help her with a dauntingly large cookbook she was writing for the New York Times. After testing more than 1200 recipes together, eating countless dinners at 11 pm, and doing all the necessary research and proofreading and dishwashing, we've finished the book, which will be out in 2010 (published by W.W. Norton).
Food52 grew out of an insight we had while working on the book: the best recipes come from home cooks. If you think about it, home cooks are practical and inventive and these qualities lead to great recipes. At food52, we recognize talented home cooks by giving them a place to show off their work, a place where cooks of all kinds come to be inspired and engaged in lively conversation. To begin, we're creating the first online community cookbook and curated recipe database. As food52's editors, we help vet the recipes, we write about food and cooking every day, and we'll soon offer a selection of the best artisanal foods and kitchen products in the country.
We love spending time in the kitchen, and we believe that memorable cooking doesn't have to be complicated or precious. It's about discovering that frying an egg in olive oil over high heat gives the white a great crackly texture, that slashing the legs of a chicken before roasting allows the dark and white meat to cook evenly, that maple syrup adds not only sweetness but depth to an otherwise ho-hum vinaigrette.
Most cooking sites and blogs take a top-down approach, telling you what to cook and failing to give you a sense of the people and creative process behind the recipes. We don't want to be yet another site that insists on dumbing down recipes to make them "quick" and "easy" — so we won't.
We think cooking is really important — especially now. Over the past decade, many studies and books have shown that children from families who eat together do better in school, that eating "whole" foods is healthier, that eating sustainably will save the environment. But no one has pointed out that the only way to achieve all this in a comprehensive, lasting way is for people to cook.
Because:
To bring together our community, we're creating a cookbook using the best recipes from food52. We do this by hosting weekly recipe contests: we choose the finalists and post slideshows of us making the recipes; then everyone votes and the winners go into the book. The food52 community will choose the title, cover design and photos. In 52 weeks we'll have our first cookbook, published by HarperCollins.
There are more fun projects on the way, like video and photo contests and The Shop, where you can help us gather a growing list of favorite foods and equipment and support small producers who, like all of us, care about the food we eat and how we cook it. We want food52 to be the only cooking site you need. After the first book is done, who knows what's to come — we hope you'll help us figure it out!
We look forward to cooking with you!
