• You gotta sign your real first name to your request. Not e-mail name, not chat handle, not initials (unless you're one of those people who uses their initials as their first name in everyday life), but your real first name.
• PLEASE AVOID USING ALL-CAPS.
• Before you write, check the Most Popular Requests Page to see if what you want is already there. Then search the Archives with the search engine.
• Please limit your recipe requests to one per e-mail. It's okay to send multiple e-mails, each with a different request.
• Please realize that searching the Internet is a big part of what I do. If you have already searched the Internet for your recipe and found recipes with the same name that weren't right,you need to tell me and tell me why they weren't right. Otherwise, I am going to send you those same recipes.
• If you want to prove me wrong about something, you must provide references. I research my replies, and I won't change something without a reference to back up the change.
• If you are looking for a recipe from a restaurant that is currently in operation, and you have already checked the copycat sites listed on my Links Page and have thoroughly Googled, then please do not ask me to waste my time repeating the searches that you have already done. Most restaurants do not freely give out their recipes, and people rarely create copycat recipes for dishes from local restaurants. I do not call restaurants and beg for their recipes, and I have no special method of obtaining restaurant recipes. If it's not on the Internet and you didn't get it when you asked the chef, then it's probably not available.
• Regarding school lunchroom recipes: If you went to a school in the Los Angeles Public School System or another big city schools system like Boston, New York, Chicago, etc, then there is a possibility that some of their lunchroom recipes have made it onto the Internet. However, if you attended Tremont Elementary School in Tremont, MS, then it's very unlikely that any of their lunchroom recipes are available. I might be able to find you a school lunchroom recipe for your dish, but not the one from Tremont Elementary School.
• Recipe searches that I no longer do (unless the particular request has a unique name): recipes from the backs of product cans or boxes, recipes from magazines (unless the recipe has a unique name or unique ingredients),anything with jello as a main ingredient, fruit salad recipes, ice box or refrigerator pie or cake or cookie or candy recipes, cake or pie recipes out of ordinary cookbooks, cheesecake recipes, fruit cake recipes, fudge recipes, and most candy recipes.
• These types of recipes interest me: nostalgic recipes from restaurants, hotels, amusement parks, drive-ins, etc that are no longer in operation; historical recipes; European recipes; Asian recipes; African recipes; weird and unusual foods; recipes with a story attached to them; literary recipes; traditional Southern food; traditional Northeastern food; traditional Western recipes; Caribbean recipes; Latin American recipes; haute cuisine; seafood recipes; historical puzzles; trivia and other non-recipe questions.
• If the recipe you're looking for is something that you had in a restaurant, please provide the name of the restaurant and its location so that I can try to find their menu online.
• Please be as specific as possible. Please don't write and ask for "some chicken recipes" or "some low fat recipes"or "some recipes with brazil nuts" or "something interesting with lark livers." That's not what I do. I search for specific recipes (and answers to questions) that you cannot find.
• Please don't send a vague request for a common dish like "peach pie", I will find dozens of peach pie recipes, and I cannot send them all to you, nor can I send you a few at a time until you recognize the one you want. You will have to use Google and sort through them yourself. The exception is if the recipe has a unique name or unique ingredients.
• If at all possible, give me the name of the recipe. I can't do much with nothing but a description and only one or two common ingredients. Please understand that I can't search for a recipe by a description of what the finished product looked like or how it tasted.
• Always give me all of the ingredients you can think of up front, and the cooking method.
• Anything unusual about the recipe is particularly helpful, and may be the only way to distinguish that recipe from hundreds of others with similar names & ingredients.
• After years of doing this, I can tell you that looking for "back-of-the-box" and "on-the-label" recipes is not worth the time involved. Recipes are not listed that way. When someone puts a recipe on the Internet or in a recipe collection, they rarely say "this is from the 1950's Hershey's cocoa can".
• If you are diabetic or have food allergies or are on a special diet for other reasons, then I sympathize. However, I do not search for milk-free, egg-free, flourless, sugar-free, etc, recipes unless the dish has a unique name. None of the tools that I use for searching are any help in quickly finding this type of recipe. There are a few links to sites that specialize in these sorts of recipes on the Most Popular page. If you are on a special diet, then the thing to do is to learn to use the search engines yourself and to bookmark every site that you can find that has the sort of recipes that you need.
• I do not have any special access to either casino recipes or cruise ship recipes. What I do is search the Internet for these.
• Also, please don't think that I have access to magazine recipes. I don't. I search the Internet. When people put recipes on the Internet, nine times out of ten they don't say where they got it. If you don't know the name of the recipe, and it doesn't have any unique ingredients, then I can't find it just by knowing that it was pork chops and was in "Bon Appetit" in 1986.
• From time to time people write wanting recipes for dishes with raw eggs or recipes for home-canning meats/fish or recipes for canning things in pure olive oil or olive oil and garlic. I will not go against FDA warnings on these things, so I no longer pass on such recipes.
• Other than the above caveats, the content of this site is reader-driven. The purpose is to find answers to readers' requests. I also do links to recipes of different countries, mainly because I get so many requests for recipes for specific countries. I also do cookbook reviews and post a recipe from those reviewed cookbooks as an example of what may be found in them. If someone feels that a post is an infringement of their rights, I will remove it if they explain how it is an infringement in excess of U.S. Copyright Office guidelines.
• If you don't get a reply to your e-mail, then some possible reasons are: 1) You didn't give your real first name, or 2) There was something wrong with your return e-mail address on the message you sent. or 3)If you have a spam guard that bounces all e-mails except those on your "friends list", then your aren't going to get your answer unless you have put my e-mail address on that list already. Sorry, I'm not going to some website and fill out a form so you can get a reply to the e-mail request that you sent to me. After all, You wrote to me. Add me to your friends list before you write to me.
• You can't rely on the answer to your request being posted on the site. I don't post every one of them, only the ones that I think are interesting.
• Notice that this is a website. Its content is made up of e-mail requests from readers and my replies to them. I won't give your full name, and I will delete your e-mail address, but your e-mail question or request may be posted on this site unless you have good reason and specifically request confidentiality. I do not give out e-mail addresses to third parties, and I do not automatically subscribe anyone to a newsletter, which I don't have anyway. Any recipe that you send me may be also placed on the website unless you specifically request that it not be.
• Disclaimer: I have not, by any means, tried all of the recipes that I find on the Internet. Often I don't even have time to read them closely before I send them out. Many of them come from message boards, and there may occasionally be an ingredient or a step left out. Not having tried the recipes myself, I can't guarantee any of these recipes. Read the recipes through and see if they make sense before you use them and test them before you use them for an event. If you find a recipe on the site with an error or omission, please let me know.
• Notice: Eating fatty foods or sugary foods may cause you to gain weight or to have the health problems associated with the intake of such foods. You prepare these recipes and eat these foods at your own risk, as do I. I merely locate recipes for those who ask. I am not responsible for the nutritional content of foods prepared from any recipe that I list or link to, nor for any health problems resulting from their use or from the consumption of the foods or beverages described therein.
• Send your questions to:
  Phaedrus
  phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com

LINKS AND THINGS:

Our LINKS!

Copyright (c) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Phaedrus