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The
following list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) have been compiled from
visitors like you. If you have any additional questions that aren't answered
from these FAQ's please send your question to us at question@gsnrecipes.com
and we will get back to you as quickly as possible.
GSN
Recipes FAQ's:
Questions
About GSN Recipe Box
What is gsnrecipes.com?
What gsnrecipes.com is not?
What do I do if I have a question or comment or find an error
on the site?
Registration
Questions
Why should I register?
Is there a cost for registering?
How do I register?
What if I have trouble registering?
What should I do if I forget my password?
Search
Questions
How do I use gsnrecipes.com’s search engine?
What are acceptable search entries?
Why do I have to separate search terms with "and" and "or"?
How can I improve my search for recipes?
What is the best way for me to narrow my search by region?
What happens if I put "French" in the search box?
Why isn't my homeland represented on your "regional" list?
Is there a regional default?
How do I search for holiday recipes?
Recipe
Specific & Nutritional Info. Questions
How is a recipe's nutritional value determined?
How accurate is your nutritional information?
How do I choose "my recipes?"
How do I set my diet preferences?
How can I save my dietary preferences as defaults?
Why would I ignore my diet preferences?
What constitutes a vegetarian recipe?
What constitutes a vegan recipe?
What constitutes a kosher food?
How are courses determined?
How is a recipe's preparation time determined?
Other
Questions
How do I purchase a cookbook?
Why doesn’t the list of equipment contain all kitchen tools?
How does gsnrecipes.com choose the cookbooks that are made available
to me?
How can I suggest other cookbooks for inclusion in the gsnrecipes.com
database?
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Questions About GSN Recipe
Box
What
is gsnrecipes.com?
The heart of gsnrecipes.com is a search engine encyclopedia of the world’s
leading published cookbooks. It is by far the most comprehensive index of cookbook
recipes available anywhere.
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What
gsnrecipes.com is not?
gsnrecipes.com is not a collection of nameless, generic recipes pulled together
from unknown authors or publishers
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What
do I do if I have a question or comment or find an error on the site?
We would very much like to hear from you. Please e-mail us at question@gsnrecipes.com
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Registration Questions
Why
should I register?
In order to use the following site features it is required that you register
with gsnrecipes.com:
- If you would like to
identify your diet preferences and have them saved so that they remain in
effect for subsequent visits to the site
- If you would like to
limit your recipe search to a particular selection of cookbooks contained
in our database
You may also want to register
for these reasons:
- To receive gsnrecipes.com
news and announcements via e-mail, such as when new books are added to the
database
- To receive the gsnrecipes.com
"recipe of the day" or "recipe of the week" via e-mail
Please note that we have
implemented a very strict privacy policy for visitors who register at gsnrecipes.com.
For more information, read the privacy policy, which
can always be accessed from the bottom of the home page.
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Is
there a cost for registering?
There is no charge involved with registering at gsnrecipes.com.
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How
do I register?
You will either be prompted to register when using certain site features
or you may choose to register starting from the bottom of the home page by clicking
on profile. Then follow these simple steps:
- Click on "create your
user profile now."
- Complete the registration
form on the following screen.
- Once you are sure that
the information you have entered is correct, click on the "register"
button.
You will receive an email
confirmation of your registration shortly after your submittal.
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What
if I have trouble registering?
We are working to make the registration process simple and fast. If you
run into trouble, however, please e-mail us at info@gsnrecipes.com.
If you get an error message when you try to register, it is very helpful to
us if you can paste the error message into the e-mail you send us.
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What
should I do if I forget my password?
A good deal of security underlies our password structure. If you have been
a gsnrecipes.com member for some time, you may have accumulated a large collection
of recipes on the site, and you certainly don’t want to lose access to that
library of recipes. Similarly, we maintain the credit card number you used to
make your most recent gsnrecipes.com purchase, and we must make sure that no
unauthorized person has access to your account.
If you forget your password,
send e-mail to info@gsnrecipes.com and we’ll
work on getting you searching again as quickly as possible.
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Search Questions
How
do I use gsnrecipes.com’s search engine?
Find recipes with gsnrecipes.com by searching multiple criteria including:
ingredient combinations, author name, preparation time, ethnic focus, nutritional
limits, etc. The result of your search shows a list of matching recipes, the
ingredients used in the recipes, the book title and page number where the recipe
is found, and a detailed nutritional breakdown of the recipe.
For information on how to search for recipes, see Search
Tips.
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To FAQ List
What
are acceptable search entries?
You can search for recipes by any of the following criteria: recipe title,
cookbook author, ingredient or ingredient combinations, holidays, nutritional
preferences, meal course, ethnic or regional heritage, and maximum preparation
time. You can search for recipes that require specific cooking equipment, as
well as kosher, vegetarian, and vegan recipes. You can also exclude ingredients,
ingredient combinations, authors, or other criteria.
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Why
do I have to separate search terms with "and" and "or"?
Because many foods have compound names, when searching gsnrecipes.com the
search engine needs to be shown what word or string of words makes up a single
food. For instance, rice wine vinegar can be one ingredient, but rice, wine,
and vinegar can also be separate ingredients. Without using separators (i.e.
rice and wine and vinegar), you would never be able to search for a recipe that
included rice wine vinegar as an ingredient – the search engine would look for
rice, wine, and vinegar as separate ingredients. For more information on searching,
please see Search Tips.
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How can I improve my search for recipes?
A recipe search should be quick and easy. Don't be afraid to experiment
with gsnrecipes.com's search box.
You can enter into the search
box any ingredient(s), holiday(s), item(s) represented by the pull-down menus,
recipe name(s), author name(s) or a combination thereof. You can also exclude
any ingredient(s), author(s), etc. You can narrow your search and get even more
targeted results by using the pull-down menus and/or indicating different dietary
preferences or cookbooks in conjunction with your search box entries.
Conducting a recipe search
by entering basic ingredients into the search box and/or choosing basic selections
from the pull-down menus, may produce as many as 50 recipes matching your criteria.
In that case, you may want to narrow your search request. To do so, simply hit
your browser's back button to return to the gsnrecipes.com home page, and adjust
your entries accordingly.
Conversely, requesting a
complex combination of ingredients along with complex selections from the pull-down
menus (for example, a region AND a particular piece of equipment), may produce
a result with very few, or even NO matching recipes. In that case, you may want
to broaden your search request. To do so, simply hit your back button to return
to the home page, and adjust your entries accordingly.
For in-depth guidance, see
"search tips," found directly above the search box on the home page, and click
on "Using AND, OR and NOT."
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What
is the best way for me to narrow my search by region?
Using the regional pull-down menu, found below the search box on the home page,
may be the best way to narrow your search, as it represents all the choices
currently available to you. Or, you can simply type the country, region or ethnic
name of interest into the search box to achieve the same result.
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What
happens if I put "French" in the search box?
Putting "French" in the search box will turn up French recipes. It
will turn up recipes with French-cut green beans, French Fries, and other foods
that are not necessarily French, but use that word in their name. If you are
actually looking for French recipes, it would be better to choose "French"
from the "regional" pull-down menu and then conduct your search.
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Why
isn't my homeland represented on your "regional" list?
If a region is not represented on the home page, that may mean that currently
there are no recipes in our database representative of that region. But rest
assured, as soon as we gain access to a recipe from your region of interest,
the name of that region will appear in the regional pull-down menu on the home
page.
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Is
there a regional default?
With apologies to most of the world, gsnrecipes.com considers the regional default
to be "American" or "continental." If you do not specify
an ethnic or regional focus in the search box or pull-down menu, the search
engine will return recipe lists that are primarily from cookbooks published
in the United States and that do not have a specific regional focus. If you
are looking for "American" food, you do not need to enter that in
the search box or pull-down menu. You can search for a specific region in the
US, such as New England, Southern cooking, however, using the regional pull-down
menu. If you do not want the search box to focus on American or any other region,
specify "no preference" in the pull-down menu.
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How do I search for holiday recipes?
You can search for holiday-specific recipes by entering the name of a holiday,
with or without other ingredients, in the search box.
We make an attempt to link traditional holiday recipes with their respective
holidays only when the author of the cookbook has done so. As a result, a recipe
for roast goose from Williams-Sonoma's Thanksgiving & Christmas book may
be included in a search that includes the word "Christmas," while a roast goose
recipe from another cookbook may not be included.
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Recipe Specific
& Nutritional Info. Questions
How
is a recipe's nutritional value determined?
Recipes contained in the gsnrecipes.com database are broken down into their
smallest components. Recipe ingredients are compared with nutritional information
from the USDA nutritional database and other sources, and are calculated according
to their volume in the recipe. Then, that information is divided by the number
of servings that the recipe makes, resulting in the nutritional value of a single
serving of the dish.
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How
accurate is your nutritional information?
gsnrecipes.com includes the most comprehensive nutritional information available
anywhere. Labeling laws in the United States allow food product manufacturers
to have a margin of error of as much as 20 percent on product labels. We are
confident that our nutritional calculations are at least this accurate and,
in most cases, more.
Nutritional data for a specific
ingredient is not calculated in a recipe’s overall per serving value under the
following conditions:
- When the ingredient is
not preceded by a measure or an amount (i.e. 1 cup, 5 tablespoons, 10 pieces)
- When the ingredient
is listed as optional or as a variation
- When the ingredient is
too unique to be matched to a food in the USDA database or other food nutrition
source. (The accuracy of recipe’s nutritional value will decrease if the ingredient
is uncommon but has been closely matched to a similar food in the USDA database
or other food nutrition source.)
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FAQ List
How
do I choose "my recipes?"
Whenever you select recipes, they are stored for you in a personal database
on gsnrecipes.com. Clicking on "my
recipes," found below the search box, shows you a listing of all the recipes
you have previously selected.
If you have selected a large
quantity of recipes, you may eventually want the gsnrecipes.com search engine
to search your personal collection of previously selected recipes. To do so,
follow these steps:
- Click on the box beside
the line reading "search only my recipes."
- Choose your ingredients
and/or search criteria from the pull-down menus found below the search box.
- Then click on the "search"
button.
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FAQ List
How
do I set my diet preferences?
To set your diet preferences, click on "my diet preferences,"
found below the search box on the home page. When the diet preferences page
appears you may choose and save your preferences for the remainder of the visit
or mark them as defaults for future visits.
To save for your current
visit, follow these steps:
- Make your selections
from the available choices and pull-down menus. Do not click on any boxes
found under the heading "save as default."
- If you wish to exclude
certain foods or whole categories of food, such as dairy, enter that preference
in the box labeled "always exclude."
- Click on the "save
preferences" button.
- When the next page
appears, confirm your selections then click on "home," found at the bottom
of that page.
Return To
FAQ List
How
can I save my dietary preferences as defaults?
To save dietary preferences as defaults for future visits, follow these steps:
- Make your selections
from the available choices and pull-down menus by clicking the corresponding
boxes found under the heading "save as default."
- If you wish to exclude
certain foods or whole categories of food, such as dairy, enter that preference
in the box labeled always exclude. Be sure to also click the corresponding
boxes found under the heading "save as default."
- Click on the "save
preferences" button.
- When the next page
appears, confirm your selections then click on "home," found at the bottom
of that page.
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FAQ List
Why
would I ignore my diet preferences?
Even if you are very consistent in your own diet, there may be times when you
wish to override the diet preferences you have set as defaults. You may wish
to do this, for example, when you are cooking for others.
In those cases, place a
checkmark in the box (by clicking on it) beside "ignore my diet preferences,"
found under the search box on the home page. Your diet preferences will be ignored
as long as that box is checked.
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What
constitutes a vegetarian recipe?
A vegetarian diet excludes all meat including fish and poultry.
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What
constitutes a vegan recipe?
A vegan diet excludes all meat including fish and poultry, animal by-products,
and all dairy products (including butter, cheese, eggs and milk).
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What
constitutes a kosher food?
A kosher diet involves preparing and eating foods according to strict Jewish
biblical laws. These laws are complex, and we are not experts on the subject.
However, we have done our homework and consult with an Orthodox Rabbi when questions
arise.
We have categorized foods
into four groups: kosher dairy, kosher fish, kosher meat and pareve (food made
without animal or dairy ingredients). In accordance with Jewish dietary rules,
however, some foods, including some dairy, fish and meat, will never be considered
kosher.
While attributing recipes,
we considered whether or not a particular product could be bought at a supermarket
with a rabbinical seal of approval. For example, when attributing a recipe for
pizza, we would consider that although that recipe may not explicitly call for
kosher cheese, the cook preparing the recipe would choose to use a kosher cheese.
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How
are courses determined?
The process of determining what courses are appropriate for any given recipe
is not particularly scientific. Whenever provided, we follow the guidance of
the cookbook author regarding the course for which a recipe is most appropriate.
However, when the author has not offered guidance, our food-savvy staff categorizes
the recipe as one or more of the course options available on the course pull-down
menu found below the search box on the gsnrecipes.com home page.
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How is a recipe's preparation time determined?
When a cookbook author provides a preparation time for his or her recipes, we
present that time to you. However, when the author has not provided a preparation
time, our staff of professionally trained chefs, cooking school graduates and
teachers, avid cooks and new cooks offers an estimate of the time it is likely
to take the "average home cook" to prepare that recipe.
These are the guidelines
we use to help us estimate preparation times:
- If the recipe calls
for the cook to chop, dice, cut, shred, grate, etc., we factor in the time
it takes to complete the task.
- If the recipe calls
for pre-prepared ingredients such as cooked chicken, cooked pasta, baked
potato, etc., we do not factor in the time it takes to complete the task.
(Example: 2 cups cooked chicken breast, diced - In this case, we would not
factor in the time it takes to cook the chicken, but would factor in the
time it takes to dice the chicken.)
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FAQ List
Other Questions
How
do I purchase a cookbook?
There are a few ways to begin the cookbook purchase process. They are:
- By clicking on a cookbook
title that appears as a hyperlink (usually in blue)
- By clicking on "about
this book/purchase information"
- By clicking on "purchase
this book"
Once you have clicked on
one of the above screen prompts, you will be taken directly to gsnrecipes.com's
book seller vendor of choice where you can proceed with the purchasing process.
*Note, this cookbook purchase option may or may not be available depending
on the website's preferences.
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Why doesn’t the list of equipment contain all kitchen
tools?
The equipment listed in the equipment pull-down menu is not meant to be an exhaustive
list of all the tools likely to be found in the well-stocked kitchen.
Although you seldom decide
to prepare a meal based on the equipment you want to cook with, there may be
times when a piece of equipment dictates your recipe choice. For instance, it
is very likely that a new bread machine owner will want to search for bread
machine recipes.
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How does gsnrecipes.com choose the cookbooks that are
made available to me?
Our goal is to create in the gsnrecipes.com database a great mix of the
most prominent cookbooks currently on the market – including old favorites as
well as those that are new and promising.
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How
can I suggest other cookbooks for inclusion in the gsnrecipes.com database?
We are very much open to suggestions. To make a book suggestion, please send
an e-mail to info@gsnrecipes.com
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