Shop’NCook Blog

I went yesterday to a barbecue organized by the parents of my eldest daughter’s class and brought a plum tart to share - a traditional Swiss summer pie. About half of it had been eaten when my husband sprayed generously the remaining slices with unsweetened whipped cream. The whipped cream matches well the bitterness of the plums and is also a traditional topping.

This action created a commotion among the moms and nobody took another slice. The consensus among the parents was: whipped cream is too fattening.

Here is the picture of the pie below. What do you think?

Would YOU eat it?

Consider well: the thick layer of whipped cream, the healthy fruits, the custard and the crust. Then, stack it up against your dietary goals. Then decide. Would you eat it with the whipped cream? And how about without? (Write your answer in the comments before reading on!)
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I have been thinking how to help the users of Shop’NCook online database sharing their recipes with friends. The answer was easy: an RSS feed.

I have in fact added four RSS feeds to Shop’NCook recipe database, two for the database as a whole and two for your very own recipes:

1. List of the latest recipes uploaded to the database (title only)
2. The latest recipe uploaded to the database (includes the text of the recipe)
3. List of your recipes (title only)
4. Your latest recipe (includes the text of the recipe)

You can access the feeds on the recipe database page. To see the last two feeds, you need to login first.

Tip: If you have been adding recipes using Shop’NCook software, you may not have an account with the database. Make sure you create an account using the Setup Login function on the Tools menu of the recipe manager to be able to keep the ownership of the recipes you have already uploaded.

What can I do with the database feeds?

You subscribe to the feeds with a news aggregator (or feed reader). There are plenty of free online services like Google Reader or Bloglines, for example. This way, you can check in one convenient place all your subscriptions. Each time a new recipe is published on the database, it will be displayed on your news aggregator. You can also use your news aggregator to follow this blog’s RSS feed.

What can I do with my recipes’ feeds?

You can give the feed URL to your friends so that they know when you upload a new recipe. There are also a lot of cool ways you can use an RSS feed. A few examples:

• If you have a blog, add the feed to your blog so that your latest recipes are automatically displayed on your blog. For an example, look at the topmost right corner of this blog that displays the latest ten recipes uploaded on the database.
• If you have a Facebook account, there are several applications that allow to display an RSS feed on your profile. For example, Blog RSS Feed to display your own feed, or Feed Friend RSS that allows you to share your feeds with friends.
• Twitter every time you add a recipe to the database by using RSS2Tweeter service.

Do I need Shop’NCook to upload recipes to the database?

No! The database is completely integrated with Shop’NCook software, but can also be used independently. To add a recipe, you can either use the Share function of Shop’NCook or add it directly on the recipe database page.

The database lists also now the latest hundred recipes uploaded on its main page. When you add a recipe, it will appear at once on the front page.

Have fun with this new RSS feature! If you have other suggestions to improve the online database, leave a comment below.