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About this site...

So, you want to know more about this site, eh? Pull up a chair and I'll tell you about it.

This site began on a whim. Or rather, this site is the result of multiple whims, occuring randomly over time in a Brownian sort of way.

It all started at Delphi. I discovered the Delphi forum system while I was procrastinating about studying for the prelim exams for my PhD program. The Delphi forums are a vast collection of websites that provide message boards and chatrooms on any topic imaginable, and they are a wonderfully effective means of procrastination. Unlike most other messageboard/chatroom systems on the web, Delphi is a serve-yourself organization. That is, regular folks like you and me set up and run the forums. (Well, it was... until they realized they couldn't make any money that way. Now in order to host a forum you have to purchase a membership. But the required membership fee is pretty minimal.) I surfed around the Delphi community for awhile, and generally had a good time. Then, I tried to look up yet another topic that I was interested in and would like to chit chat about, but to my horror, the search engine came up empty. Oh no! What to do? Well, no doubt about it, I just had to set up a forum to answer the purpose. The topic in question (as you may have surmised) was the art of Jewish cooking.

I didn't do much with the forum initially. I had passed my prelim exams and so I no longer had reason to procrastinate about anything. In fact, I needed to get cracking on my thesis research lest I suffer as a graduate student interminably. So, the forum idled for a good 6 months with almost no activity. Then, I got pregnant.

Pregnancy had two positive effects on the development of the Jewish Cuisine forum at Delphi. First, I had to take maternity leave from my program because my line of research was not compatible with pregnancy. This meant I had time on my hands. Second, I didn't get morning sickness. This meant I was ravenous for 9 months.

I got into promoting my forum, and sure enough, I soon had a nice gathering of regular posters. Unlike a lot of other fora, the topic of Jewish cooking mainly attracts nice warm friendly folks who just want to set around chatting and eating good food... my kind of people. It made me think of my grandmother often since I was drawing heavily on her kitchen lore, and that's a warm-fuzzy inducer right there. It was fun. People posted tips and recipes and we all were having a grand time.

Then, I got to thinking (always dangerous). It sure would be nice to archive the recipes people were posting to the forum. No big deal - I know enough html and there are free web hosting sites all over the web. I started up an archive at a free email/webpage site with a minimum of fuss and off we went.

The archive grew. I grew. I sat in front of the monitor and made pretty graphics for the site. I cursed the webhost provider because upload time was ridiculous - 15 minutes for 2k of text. But, I really didn't care that much... it was free, I had time on my hands and the hormones of pregnancy made me oh so mellow. I enjoyed the work. I became aware that it's easy to lose track of the old recipes... you know, the ones you take for granted because your mother or grandmother has always made them every year. This archive is a way to exchange ideas, but it's also a way for anybody who so wishes to preserve those culinary memories for another generation.

Then I had the baby.

Time? What time? Actually, what time is it? I mean, what day is it? Anyone who's ever had a new baby knows exactly what I mean, and for anyone who hasn't ever had a baby... well, words cannot possibly express the complete disorientation that arrives with the new arrival so you'll just have to accept on faith that I no longer had much free time. Besides, with a baby this adorable, who wants to do much else except nibble those widdle toes and play peek-a-boo? But, I digress.

I wasn't willing to put up with waiting 15 minutes for a lousy page of html to upload. That meant I either abandoned the site or had to pay for webhosting service. I just couldn't abandon the site - too much of my grandmother's kitchen was there. Then, another whim reared its ugly head: well, if I'm gonna pay for webhosting service... I might as well register a domain name. And, before you could say 'boo', I had www.jewishcuisine.net all locked up.

Now I had this official-looking domain name, and I was paying for it too. It's kind of embarassing to have this fancy shmancy domain name, only to have the site look like a hovel reigned by disorganization. So, I've spiffed it up and added other resources. It's not so hard to upgrade it now that I don't have to wait forever for upload time. I also added some means of generating income so as to defray the cost of running the site.

But, the soul of the site remains the same. This is still a place where you can draw up a chair and enjoy a good meal with friendly folks. You can check out the archive, scan the other services and post (or lurk) in the forum. And, if you're so inclined, you can add your family's recipes to our archive. It's a simple as posting a hello-how-are-ya along with your recipe to our message board at Delphi.

Nu, you hungry? Let me get something for you to eat...