Gretchen’s Cookbook - Help Page

Searching the Cookbook

You can search the cookbook from any page using the Search box in the upper right. Enter terms for your search and press return.

You can also click the "Search recipes" link in the upper bar for more search functionality.

Short Words

Unfortunately, the Search Box and the keyword search do not work for words with 3 or fewer letters. This is because of the way the database server is set up by our web hosting service. Currently, the only way to search for short words is using the "Title" field on the search page.

Browsing the Cookbook

The "Browse Genres" links on the left let you browse all recipes for a given cuisine.

Sorting Results

When you have a list of recipes, click on any of the column heads (Title, Genre, Course, Contributor) to search by that item. If you searched (instead of browsed) to find the recipes, clicking "Sort by Relevance" will place the closest matches first. (Relevance sorting works best when you searched on multiple keywords.)

Becoming a Contributor

If you are Gretchen’s friend or relative, we invite you to become a contributor to her web site. Simply contact her and ask for a password.

Submission Guidelines

To ensure the best looking recipes possible, please observe the following guidelines for submitting recipes:

Enter ingredients one-per-line separated by returns
Separate long blocks of directions into paragraphs with returns
Enter recipes in "American" English measurements
Use standard abbreviations or full words for measurements
In numbers, denote fractions with a slash (not special characters) e.g., 1/2.
In numbers, use hyphens only to denote ranges, e.g., 3-4 potatoes, not 2-1/2 lbs.

Editing a Recipe

If you are a contributor to Gretchen’s Cookbook, you can edit a recipe you submitted by navigating to the recipe and clicking "Edit Recipe" in the contributor bar near the bottom of the page.