Have any of you seen an episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian? If you haven’t, too bad, because it has a lot to do with my first paid review on this blog.
Lisa: They can’t seriously expect us to swallow that tripe.
Skinner: Now as a special treat courtesy of our friends at the Meat Council, please help yourself to this tripe. [Class cheers and runs to table loaded with tripe.]
Lisa: Stop it Stop IT! Don’t you realize you’ve just been brainwashed by corporate propaganda?
Janie: Hmmph, apparently my crazy friend here hasn’t heard of the food chain.
Uter: Yeah, Lisa’s a grade A moron!
Ralph: When I grow up, I’m going to go to Bovine University.
Joel Spolsky has his underpants in a bunch because spoiled grade A… I mean, A-list bloggers are currently being showered with fancy laptops, all expenses paid trips and other goodies by PR agencies. Next thing we’ll see is the Webbys attendees start getting Emmys-like gift baskets. It’s a widely known fact in the entertainment industry: if you want the A-listers to attend your crappy awards show, you better give them some stuff that they can buy with their pocket money.
Since I am not an A-list blogger, nobody is trying to bribe me with a drool-inducing HDTV TIVO or a shiny new laptop, so if I want to shed some of my credibility, I’ll have to do some work. I decided to try out the very controversial http://www.reviewme.com.
The deal is simple: an advertiser asks me to write a review on my blog, and if I do, I get some money. I do have pretty good pagerank and a decent amount of readers (aka blog juice), so after a month or so of waiting, I got my first paying reviewee, chefs.com. They want me to review their recipes. Fine. Off to http://www.chefs.com/recipes/default.aspx I go. I do like to cook, and I do use recipe sites all the time.
The last time I searched for a recipe I was looking to do curry. See, I purchased this really awesome Maharajah Style Curry Powder from PENZEYS Spices. It’s pricey, but unlike curry powder that you might find in a supermarket, it’s made out of the best and freshest ingredients with a pound of Kashmir saffron for every 50lb of curry.
So I type in “curry” into chefs.com and sort by cook time (a seemingly useful feature). What do I get? 133 results overall, which is not stellar, but a number of curry recipes that take 0 minutes to prep and 0 minutes to cook. A boon to a busy web developer and blogger like myself. Just to think that I was using Joe Grossberg’s How to Make a Simple Curry “Anything” that takes whole 15 minutes!
Ok, so the supefast curry recipe turned out to be just a case of bad data, a lazy developer and a company (it could be that it consists of that one lazy developer) that does not use it’s own product(or does not care about it).
Moving on. Some time ago I had to look up a recipe for another exotic delicacy, Ä°ÅŸkembe çorbası. It’s a Turkish soup made of tripe. I have it regularly at a Turkish restaurant near my house, and it’s extremely delicious. Tripe can be very tasty when prepared right.
So I type in “tripe” into chefs.com. Here’s what I get:
To my disappointment, the first result, “Lighter Fresh Applesauce in Puff Pastry” does not contain any tripe. Neither do the rest of them.
From what I know, recipes are not really copyrightable. Because of that, it’s possible to get a couple of cds with recipes from somewhere or just scrape the web and start your own site. For instance, the recipe for “Lighter Fresh Applesauce in Puff Pastry” shows up on different websites with the same phrasing down to “Bake puff pastry shells according to package directions.” One of the sites even has nutritional info, but also omits the source of the recipe.
To conclude my review, chefs.com has reviews available elsewhere with one of the buggiest search interfaces I’ve ever seen. The owner of the site probably used some Bovine U-trained developers, and not that the site is generating pretty good revenue, is looking for a way to improve the search engine positioning. He or she has no clue about web development and marketing. I could provide that clue, but it’ll take a bit more than the $50 I should get for this review.
Pingback: mission fitness
Pingback: best supplements for muscle gain
Pingback: Dallas Video Production
Pingback: Dallas Marketing
Pingback: Dallas Website Design
Pingback: Grassy Knoll
Pingback: bodybuilding supplement
Pingback: keywodr : tarot
Pingback: LED Lights
Pingback: womens jewellery
Pingback: Low Interest Payday Loans
Pingback: Porn forum
Pingback: cleaning business
Pingback: mobile coupons target
Pingback: Atlanta Garage Door Repair
Pingback: certified medical assistant
Pingback: Shakti
Pingback: read
Pingback: Omega 3 benefits
Pingback: European casino hotels
Pingback: Alvin Blog
Pingback: Escort girl Paris
Pingback: eye floaters treatment
Pingback: lethbridge real estate
Pingback: send flowerrs to sri lanka
Pingback: home fitness workout program
Pingback: Wholesale Clothing
Pingback: what is serotonin
Pingback: bathroom floor tile design ideas
Pingback: Treasury Bonds
Pingback: hotels near uk cities
Pingback: Adina Haydon
Pingback: Personal Finance
Pingback: normal cholesterol levels
Pingback: Car girls
Pingback: Scott Tucker Racing
Pingback: Scott Tucker Racing
Pingback: Scott Tucker Racing
Pingback: Scott Tucker CBS
Pingback: Scott Tucker CBS
Pingback: Brazzers Password
Pingback: fast cash commissions
Pingback: clearwater homes for sale
Pingback: corporate video production nyc
Pingback: BPO Companies
Pingback: bpo software
Ooh that is awesome you use my recipe. I’m going to be doing it tonight for my gf.
I think the best way to test out a curry powder is to *not* use it in an actual curry, where it can be overpowered by other robust tastes.
I find that curry powder works really well in scrambled eggs, for a savory breakfast. Scramble the eggs with a splash of water. Add a 1/2 tsp of curry powder, a pinch of salt. Whisk. Cook. Eat them plain, or on toast.
The yolk is great for the fat-soluble spices (which is why curries always have a base like oil or coconut milk, and never stuff like broth or water), and scrambled eggs is a mild and familiar taste that you’ll be able to isolate the scents and flavors in that curry powder.
My favorite tripe recipe, bar none, is the very hearty Sopa de Mondongo. I believe there are some sort of white beans included in the Salvadorean variant I enjoy. I think it’s great for the winter.
To continue the “Simpsons” connection, it would appear that chefs.com has 5 recipies for “gazpacho”, the ice cold tomato soup that Lisa makes for Homer’s BBQ party.
(And 3 of them ALSO have a cook time of Zero minutes!)
Do they have Flaming Moe recipes?
I was having diner in Istanbul and selected the “Tribe Supe” from the menu. I was expecting a soup from one of the local tribes of nomads or something. I should have gotten the phonetic hint from the soup mis-spell, but I didn’t. Anyway… the tripe soup was just ok.