Taste of Home

Author: Kaitlyn Short

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The Good

The Taste of Home website contains numerous, great features which are very beneficial to users and members including:

• Thousands of Recipes
• Dietary Restriction Categories
• Extensive Filtering
• Expansive Community and Forum
• Expert Advice and How-To's

The Taste of Home website contains thousands of recipes collected from its magazine as well as sister publications and includes recipes from members across the country. The recipes are broken down into several categories including quick and easy, type of dish, and cuisine as well as special dietary needs. The advanced search feature is unique and is extremely helpful for users and members. The feature allows users to filter results using options such as ingredient to include and exclude, special diets, keywords, cook time, servings, cooking style, and course. This is a feature unseen on many websites and is a great feature for anyone who visits. The extensive Community section is also unique to this website. While many sites have forums and Q & A sections, Taste of Home offers users a very inclusive environment where home cooks can get together and discuss cooking and entertaining, post their own recipes, save recipes for later, and a function which puts together a shopping list is provided. The expert advice section in combination with the How-To articles is also another great feature and helps beginners develop their skills while offering tips which can improve a reader's cooking experience in general.

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The Bad

Upon review, there are only a few items we would add to the Taste of Home website:

• A Menu Planner or Calendar
• Difficulty Level on Recipes

Adding a menu calendar or planner to the website would assist home cooks and would pair well with the shopping list feature. A menu calendar would help the website's member create meal plans and menus for an extended period of time and could even help people stick to a healthy diet by offering them suggestions on what to cook for everyday meals. By linking a meal planner to a shopping list generator members would be able to plan out meals for their family and what they need to make them in one step, saving them time. Assigning a difficulty rating to the recipes would also be helpful to users and members. The feature allows users to filter out recipes which they don't believe they could complete successfully as well as slowly growing their skills by attempting more difficult recipes gradually over time. This feature can also help users who feel very confident with their cooking skills locate recipes which will challenge them in a quick and easy fashion. Difficulty levels also help users filter out recipes which they simply do not have time to complete as they are usually more challenging.

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The Bottom Line

We recommend this website to any home cook looking to develop their skills and connect with a community of similar individuals. The numerous recipes as well as extensive how-to's and inclusive community make the website a great resource for home cooks of varying skill levels and dietary needs. The few additions which could be made to the site do not overshadow the usefulness of the advanced search feature and the sheer number of recipes available.