Classic Recipes

Review by Debbie Mazo

If you're new to the kitchen or suffering from a lack of culinary imagination, the Web can provide an assortment of recipes with more choices than any single cookbook could ever offer. Guaranteed to satisfy even your grandmother, Classic Recipes offers hundreds of recipes and more for everyone from the most sophisticated gourmet to the most elementary beginner.

Founded in 1998, Classic Recipes is dedicated to providing the best of culinary and health-oriented information on the Internet. With everything from a Food and Health Directory to message boards to a MarketPlace for all of your shopping needs, this food resource has all the interactive tools any chef wannabe needs to embark on the road to culinary success. Navigating this extensive site is easy with the option to either click on one of the homepage highlights, or use the menu buttons at the top of the page to select from one of the site's four distinct areas: Cooking, Wine, Health, and the Kitchen Library. Want to get your daily dose of Classic Recipes? Then, subscribe to the site's ezine for recipes, cooking and health tips, and wine, beer, and coffee reviews.

To keep you up-to-date on the latest health news, click on the Health button for a tour of the site's healthy living headquarters. Check out a list of the best selling health products or flip the virtual pages of a Health and Beauty Guide complete with a Vitamin and Mineral Guide listing the benefits, RDA, and best food sources of each entry.

If you'd like to expand your recipe file, the Cooking section not only offers a surplus of great recipes but also a cooking dictionary and an online gourmet kitchen shop where you can stock up on all kinds of kitchen tools from knife sharpeners to salad spinners. Looking for a specific recipe? The site's recipe archive links you to hundreds of recipes, including SOAR (Searchable Online Archive of Recipes) where you can browse through various categories or search by type of dish, ethnic group, or keyword. Try some of the tempting breakfast selections at this link, including Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake or Almond Cream Cheese French Toast. Feeling adventurous? Then, sample Lebanese Chicken seasoned with minced garlic, thyme, paprika, cumin, and cayenne pepper.

To help pick your bubbly, click the Wine button which is guaranteed to please any wine snob. Check out Classic Recipe's Best Buy List for the best valued wines on the market. Or, learn the well-kept secrets of pairing wine and food. For example, sweetness in wine and food tends to neutralize each other. A very sweet dessert wine will actually seem less so when paired with a sweet dessert.

At Classic Recipes, you can increase your culinary knowledge regardless of your experience. With its treasure trove of food and health-related information, this site is a must stop for Web surfers who want to learn to be better, healthier cooks.

Current Digest

1999 Reviews

May 1999
Margarine on the Web
Mange Firenzia
Calorie Control Council

April 1999
Helen's British Cooking
GourmetSpot
B's Cucumber Pages
Tiramisu

March 1999
Easter Cooking at WYK
Middle Eastern Cookbook
Eatchicken.com
www.fromages.com
A Boke of Gode Cookery

February 1999
Chopstix New Year Page
Dim Sum Shrine
and Take-Out Joint
Godiva Online
Bread Machine Digest

January 1999
Non-Dairy
Indian Food Guide
Greek Olive Oil
Light Living