Gourmets finally meet Geeks, online.

My obsession for great food goes beyond my brand new pasta machine. It also shows in my bookmarks bar. There is a plethora of websites to find recipes, and the new generation embraces the web 2.0ness. Here are my favorites:

MARTHA STEWART, THE MOTHER OF ALL

She’s the Oprah of cooking and was once one of the most powerful women in the US, before being convicted of lying to investigators about a stock sale for which she had to serve five months in prison. She’s even bigger after a much publicized comeback at the head of a media and merchandising empire. The content of years of tips and recipes found in her magazines, books and TV shows are gathered in one site, while acting as a hub promoting all the goods under her name, sold at Kmart, Lowe’s, Macy’s…
I love the site’s refined design, the depth and quality of content, and the small and subtle touches of AJAX. And it adds to my homemaking cred.

TASTE SPOTTING, HIP AND INTRIGUING

Started in 2007 by the NotCot team, the site acts like an aggregator of recipes found on different blogs and submitted by the readers. No complex search tool here, the user browse through a grid of gorgeous images until inspired by one of them, clicking on it to be redirected to the source blog. Surprisingly addictive.

COOKTHINK, THE ONE THAT LISTENS

You just bumped into your sexy date on a date with another date, and decide to impress your girlfriends with some South American food based on the few ingredients available in your fridge. That’s basically what CookThink offers you. Browse the tag cloud and select all the relevant items. So that would be in this case consoling, Argentinian, chicken and onion. And you get… French Onion And Shallot Soup! OK, I guess that the search engine needs some fine tuning. Give chance another spin by clicking on “Almost… show me more recipes”, which is actually my favorite page on the site. I also dig the related tips, the Meal Builder and their blog.

OPEN SOURCE FOOD, THE SOCIAL SITE FOR HOME-CHEFS

That one has a list of impressive features for a site developed by one guy! Recipes are user-generated, and “home-chefs” have a profile page that gathers submitted recipes, loved ones, comments posted by others… You can follow your favorite users to be updated when they post new dishes. A bit like facebook’s Activity Feed for gourmets, sans the retarded apps. Seriously impressive, convenient and well thought.