FAQ

What is your Favorite Food?
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What is your Favorite Spice and Why?
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What is your favorite Cocktail?
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How do recipe copyrights work?
Welcome to the most frequently asked of all the frequently asked questions in the history of food writing, or, in short, great question! Here’s the official word from the U.S. Copyright Office: “A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.” Got that? Ingredient lists? Not copyrighted. Directions and added instructions? Copyrighted. Reprinting a recipe word for word? A copyright violation. That’s about as clear as it gets. More questions? Keep reading…

You use the phrase ‘Adapted from’ in many of your recipe sources. What does this mean?
In most cases, what it means is that I am being gracious. In the vast majority of recipes (the exceptions being where I’ve used the phrase “Adapted, barely” and very early recipes on the site, where I was less versed in copyright etiquette and am slowly getting things into proper form), I’ve changed many, many things — ingredient levels, some mixing instructions, cooking temperatures and times, added several notes and extra tips — enough that the recipe is legitimately “new”. But, out of respect for the place where I started my hunt for the dish, and out of a stubborn belief that it’s in bad form to pretend you were the first one to ever rub butter into flour, I like to give shout-outs to places that got me started on the path to what I wanted to achieve in the kitchen.