Question about posting recipes - technical support

garlic.. I'd love to see 'pod' as a unit..since it probably is one of the most utilized ingredients! (it could also be used for cardamom, or vanilla bean), but having said that the ingredient list is quite adaptable, & does allow for the correct measurements to get across!

Panfusine, please let us know at Editors AT food52 DOT com what measurements our recipe tool doesn't accommodate. We won't add ALL the requests because we don't want the choices to be overwhelming.

In the meantime, you can put the quantity in the quantity box, skip the measurement pulldown, and then put the type of measurement in front of the ingredient in the Item box. So, instead of:

[1] [yolk] [of an egg]

it would be:

[1] [ ] [egg yolk]

That'll show up in the recipe all purty-like. I promise!

Hello from Food52 HQ -- and thanks for the feedback. This is an interesting topic.

First of all, apologies to BurntOfferings for the lost work last night. As mentioned elsewhere on the 'Pickle, we've had a bumpy few days on the technical side of things. By Noon tomorrow things *should* be back to normal.

Second, when entering *anything* lengthy and tedious online, I *always* make sure to have a copy in Word, email, Notepad... something! 'Cause the web can be a bumpy place and it *stinks* when you lose your work.

Third, the idea of saving recipes in "draft" mode is an interesting one that's apparently been mentioned in the past but I'll be honest, it's a new one for me... but then again I've only been here for 8 weeks. I'll talk to the engineers about it and see where we can squeeze it in on our (VERRRRYY long) to-do list.

I can't wait for the Big Zombie cookbook!

Thanks for all the support guys! I have a lot of my recipes in an old, commercial, recipe building app, so it's not always easy to cut and paste, but I need to get them out of there and onto the cloud, or into a more generic format since the software isn't supported anymore (lesson learned.)

most of the recipes I've posted so far ( really tiny compared to some of the others, I've only been active here for the past 6 weeks) have already been posted on my blog, I just cut & paste the sentences. The ingredients drop down list sometimes doesn't accommodate as many measurement terms/units, so those, I just add onto the last box along with the ingredient

I hope you do publish a book, pierino. You're so knowledgeable, not to mention that attitude + intelligence + common sense = really interesting and, alas, quite rare.

I work the same way as drbabs does. I store recipes on my laptop for my own use as well as for a future book so it's easier to save them in Word and cut and paste just as she does. And also I think of my work as my own and not exclusive to food52'ers so there's no point in drafting it there. Not that I mind sharing.

Cutting and pasting the ingredients themselves is also a lot faster than selecting from the drop-down, in my experience. Just get the key stroke commands down (Control C, Control X, Control V in Word) and you'll be posting your recipes like lightning. The other good reason for drafting the recipe in Word or another good text format is that you can print and edit in hard copy before loading, which results in a better drafted recipe. I always print them out, and then test them again from the printed document, knowing that many users will be doing that. In my experience, this is the best way to confirm ease of use and accuracy. Nearly all of my recipes are edited in pen on the hard copy, then revised in Word, and only then, uploaded. And I still make a few errors in the uploading process, despite having uploaded quite a few recipes, on a fairly regular basis for well over a year. So I print each recipe out after uploading and edit it again in hard copy, and then correct before the deadline, if I have the time. ;o)

Thanks drbabs - I lost an hour of work last night. I think I'll take your suggestion with the cut and paste - at least for the directions. Ingredients are pretty straightforward. I hate posting unfinished recipes. There should be an easier solution, but it does sound like the tech folks are running as hard and fast as they can right now and I know they have more important features to focus on. It's a small thing, but it would be a welcome feature to encourage more people to post their work.

Hi Burnt Offerings. You can start and put a note on the recipe saying that you'll edit it when you can and then save it. But to my knowledge, there's no draft form (and if you don't save it, you lose it). I imagine this is on the tech to-do list. I usually write my recipes in a word document and then copy and paste them into the recipe page. It goes a lot faster that way. I hope this helps.