Reconfiguring Nikchick's Recipe Pages
I've given Nikchick.com a new 2007 makeover, with a new color scheme, a new look and feel, more links and widgets, and a more prominent placement of my recipe pages. In the coming weeks, I'm going to be reconfiguring the recipe pages themselves.
As loyal readers know, I am a big fan of Cooking Light Magazine and I frequently use their recipes with fabulous results. My recipes pages are replete with recipes from this issue or that issue that I have personally tried and consider to be worthy of recommending. As a publisher myself, though, I've had a growing uneasy feeling about the copyright issues surrounding the inclusion of others' published recipes. I have seen it argued on recipes and copyright that you cannot copyright a list of ingredients or basic directions ("Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes") on the basis that a recipe is a scientific formula and the U.S. Copyright Office backs this up. This is the same rule that in game design circles is expressed as "You can't copyright game mechanics, just the expression of those mechanics."
In the past, I've always included the instructions for a recipe verbatim as the instructions are crucial in getting the result you expect from any recipe. However if there is a place where copyright could be claimed, the instructions would certainly be the likely place. As someone who has seen my own company's copyrighted products shared freely around the internet, I would prefer to keep my conscience clear on the issue of my collected recipes.
Going forward I will be presenting new recipes in a review format. I already credit the publisher of any recipe that comes from anywhere other than my family recipe box and my recipe page index already catalogs when I tried the recipes. I only include recipes that I've actually made myself, not just things that sound yummy. Going forward the recipes will include my own experience creating the dish and the instructions will contain commentary in my own words. I considered giving recipe star ratings or grades but I'd rather keep to a pass or fail system: either the recipe was good enough to keep (in which case it gets a recommendation) or it wasn't (in which case, I'm not going to waste everyone's time bothering to document the effort unless it's spectacularly tragic and can be shared for its humor value).
In that vein, I bring you my most current recipe page updates:
Beef with Spicy Cocoa Gravy
Peppered Pork and Pears
Pumpkin Waffles
As loyal readers know, I am a big fan of Cooking Light Magazine and I frequently use their recipes with fabulous results. My recipes pages are replete with recipes from this issue or that issue that I have personally tried and consider to be worthy of recommending. As a publisher myself, though, I've had a growing uneasy feeling about the copyright issues surrounding the inclusion of others' published recipes. I have seen it argued on recipes and copyright that you cannot copyright a list of ingredients or basic directions ("Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes") on the basis that a recipe is a scientific formula and the U.S. Copyright Office backs this up. This is the same rule that in game design circles is expressed as "You can't copyright game mechanics, just the expression of those mechanics."
In the past, I've always included the instructions for a recipe verbatim as the instructions are crucial in getting the result you expect from any recipe. However if there is a place where copyright could be claimed, the instructions would certainly be the likely place. As someone who has seen my own company's copyrighted products shared freely around the internet, I would prefer to keep my conscience clear on the issue of my collected recipes.
Going forward I will be presenting new recipes in a review format. I already credit the publisher of any recipe that comes from anywhere other than my family recipe box and my recipe page index already catalogs when I tried the recipes. I only include recipes that I've actually made myself, not just things that sound yummy. Going forward the recipes will include my own experience creating the dish and the instructions will contain commentary in my own words. I considered giving recipe star ratings or grades but I'd rather keep to a pass or fail system: either the recipe was good enough to keep (in which case it gets a recommendation) or it wasn't (in which case, I'm not going to waste everyone's time bothering to document the effort unless it's spectacularly tragic and can be shared for its humor value).
In that vein, I bring you my most current recipe page updates:
Beef with Spicy Cocoa Gravy
Peppered Pork and Pears
Pumpkin Waffles
Labels: food
for this post
Leave a Reply