Food Bytes

Maureen's got to get out more - if people are SO busy wouldn't they order in or dine out? Got to be online then why wouldn't people w/ iPhones or Blackberry's just got to a recipe site? Sorry not buying into being a "Twit".

Are you KIDDING ME?

She takes other people's recipes, puts them into shorthand so that they'll fit into Twitter's 120 character limit and does this with the boundless idle time she has because her boyfriend is filthy rich and rents a CASTLE IN IRELAND?

Who the hell picks stories for the CBC? Out of all the interest and skilled people in the world, this is the best you could come up with? A bored, shiftless 20 something living off her boyfriend's money and pissing around with technology in her spare time?

Call me when she actually makes something of import.

I have to disagree with Ricardo. The idea of condensing a recipe into such a small space strikes me as a real intellectual challenge, maybe not a par with composing a sonnet, but along the same lines.

Lots of tweets are crap, of course, but so is lots of everything else. And if you read the interview carefully, you'll see that Maureen shows an economy of expression in her replies that lots of us could use more of.

There is a tweeting, ipod, cellphone,internet
generation that exists today and has sooo much time for all this no wonder they have no clue how to learn something in the kitchen as in "real cooking". Time well spent instead of this
constant checking and texting if you ask me.
Its become silly.

Roxanne: Because if you make one of her recipes, you're not actually cooking for real? Please.

And don't insult an entire generation based on some bizarre unfounded opinion you have about it. Since when are technology and cooking mutually exclusive? Believe it or not, it's possible to have an iPod, cell phone, and the internet and still cook. If anything, having access to a wider variety of recipes, how to videos, and actual interactions with more experienced cooks has made me a better one myself.

You also realize the irony of saying this online in the comments section of a blog about cooking, right? I bet when you learned how to cook, you had to walk barefoot in the snow to the grocery store, uphill both ways.

Please.

Anything to encourage people to cook is a plus. Cooking is a lost art; we need to learn more of it. If twittering makes it easier, then perhaps the books and pages of recipes won't be so intimidating.

However, I see twitter recipes more for intermediate cooks who know their way around a kitchen. It's hard for a beginner to decipher the twitter let alone understand the process that happens when you actually cook.

Lame.

Slow down. Disconnect once in a while. Cooking is a great time to do just that.

How stupid does "Breaker breaker good buddy! What's yer 20?" sound?

Twitter's the CB radio of 2009.

So, my tax dollars paid not only for this "article", but also Maureen's layabout lifestyle of soi-disant "writing and cultural resistance"?

Who do I call to get that money back so that it can go toward something more worthwhile, like, say, some grad student developing vaccines.

I'm the writer of the recipes, so if I may pipe in: I'm not sure what leads people to believe there is only one way to use Internet tools, and that is gluttonously. The Internet is like butter -- of course a predominate diet of it is bad for you, but that fact doesn't preclude having just a little. In fact, a little is great!

And of course, looking at Twitter as a form of expression: of course most of it is silly, but not a significantly higher proportion than is silly in magazines, television, novels, phone calls... For every great book there are innumerable pulp romances. For every intelligent phone conversation there are infinite insipid chats. Does that mean we should give up on books and telephones? I should hope not.

As for the notion that the tiny @cookbook is laying siege to traditional cooking, this seems akin to believing gay marriage is bent on destroying the institution of the family. Don't worry, it's not! I like tiny recipes and long ones -- I use both! Roxanne, you give me too much credit if you think I make the recipes up in my head. I abbreviate them from "real" recipes most of the time, and test all of them out).

And rest assured, Shane and Ricardo, that I revel in the outdoors -- I garden, walk for hours, love deep wilderness camping -- and spend as much time as I can off my computer. I don't even have a cell phone. The fact remains, though, that I'm a writer. The computer is necessarily my primary work tool. Participating in an online community based on offline activity provides five minutes of relaxation in my virtual workspace (yes, that's right -- I'll spend just five minutes a pop on Twitter -- I'm busy with grad school, for Pete's sake) and as well, it reminds me and 12,000 other people of something "real" we love doing.

So... would anyone mind elucidating the down-to-earth benefits of offhand snarks?

Terry, how do you gather that you have paid for my education? It wasn't government funded; I saved up. Of course, I don't write Twitter recipes as schoolwork, either, so your argument is senseless at all levels.

Thank you Maureen for replying to the many who don't get it and who then make snap judgements about you. Granted I don't know you either but I tend to think I would like to, just based on your replies to the "snarks"
Good luck and keep on Tweeting (I don't but at the moment, I just might start!)