CFYF: Cooking For Your Family Bulletin Board
OP: Original Poster
PP: Previous Poster or Previous Post
OT: Off Topic from the "theme" of the board
ISO: In Search Of... very helpful if you’re looking for tips & recipes because it tips us off immediately that you need immediate help and are looking for something specific.
IDSO: In Desperate Search Of;
URGENT ISO: accomplishes the same thing as IDSO
WFD: What’s For Dinner (see explanation below)
WWYD: What Would You Do
QoTD: Question of the Day (found in WFD)
QoTW: Question of the Week (may be found in regular weekly threads such as Healthy Cooking Healthy Living)
GTKY: Getting To Know You
WDYT: What Do You Think
WWYD: What Would You Do
IIRC: If I Recall Correctly
BTDT: Been There Done That
ETA: Edited To Add (important if you go back to a post you made to add/correct information)
GC or COTW: Guest Chef or Chef of the Week (scroll down in this post to see a detailed description)
Click Here for Additional Common General Abbreviations
Scroll Down in this post for cooking related abbreviations, measurements & values
Q: What's a "Challenge" Thread?
*A: If you have some ingredients in your pantry and/or fridge that you need to use up but need ideas on how to use them up within 1 or 2 recipes, post a Pantry Challenge or Recipe Challenge. They're a fun way to figure out how to use the last of that frozen ricotta cheese or leftover strawberries that you had from another recipe. This is one of my favorite types of threads.
Q: What’s BUMPING?
*A. Bumping moves a thread to the top of the front page when the thread needs to be seen by other posters. It’s especially helpful for regular weekly threads such as the Recipe Review thread.
When you post a thread and it gets buried, but you REALLY need a response, feel free to bump that thread so that it gets seen! This board can be very busy and it's easy to miss a thread. It doesn't mean your thread is being ignored, only that it might not be seen before someone who can help you sees it.
So, be sure to add the threads you want to keep track of to your alerts before you click "post now" so that if your thread gets buried you can post a "bump" to bring it back to the 1st page. “Bumping” a thread is when you simply and literally post “bump” as a new post to move the thread to the top of the first page.
Please try to bump 2 times tops, otherwise it may count as flooding the board.
Q: What’s WFD Mean? And why is there a "WFD Thread?" (daily):
*A. If figuring out what to serve for dinner has you scratching your head, you can find ideas on the daily WFD thread aka What's For Dinner. This is where we post our daily dinner plans, along with the recipes. There's also a QOTD (question of the day) included so we can learn more about each other.
To make this daily feature more fun, we have a Chef of the Week, or Guest Chef every week starting on Mondays (See Guest Chef explanation below). Discussions are welcome but if they become too OT, they might be redirected into the Kitchen Sink (see explanation below). There may be occasions where a Guest Chef has not been chosen, and "regular" board members may certainly post the WFD thread if there's no Guest Chef around.
Q: What’s the KITCHEN SINK THREAD? (weekly):
*A1. We don’t really have many off topic aka OT threads. Not all threads have to be food related or kitchen related, but we can't forget about the weekly Kitchen Sink thread. This is a place to go for OT conversations, advice, vent about stuff, share pictures, brag about your family, etc. We LOVE to read about your families and see photos... It just helps us to minimize clutter on the board and keeps the general focus on food, recipes, and kitchens.
*A2. We respectfully ask that if you should choose to share links to Photo Contests that they be kept in the weekly Kitchen Sink thread.
Individual threads for baby contests and other similar cluttering type of OT "polls" will be submitted to BabyCenter Community to be deleted. Again, it's an attempt to minimize clutter on the board and keeps the general focus on food, recipes and kitchens related topics. It's nothing personal!
Q: What’s the HERITAGE RECIPES THREAD? (usually bi-weekly):
*A1. The Heritage Recipes thread is a special Spotlight Thread series. The wonderful thing about it is that it focuses on a particular type of recipes based on ethnic background or heritage. For instance, our first thread included nothing but Moroccan recipes and discussion and reviews about them. Every 2 weeks the theme changes.
Your ideas for new themes are always welcome. Please feel free to post your ideas in this thread: http://boards.babycenter.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=1905.1&nav=messages&webtag=bcus9267&sr=y
Themes we've tackled so far (and have their own section in the Recipe Box are listed below. If a thread is no longer active, don't worry, the recipes are still in the Recipe Box, and if needed we can repeat a theme in the future:
Moroccan (link unavailable)
Chinese: click here
Mexican: click here
Greek: click here
French: click here
Native Indian: click here
Hawaiian: click here
Current Theme 10/11-10/25
Italian: click here
Q: What's the Roll Call?:
*A. Roll call 2006 (click here) is just a quickie introduction of yourself to the rest of the board. Anyone may post in the roll call whether you're a regular lurker or poster, or are new to the board and plan to stick around for just a little while or if you plan on settling in forever. You can still post an individual introduction thread (or re-introduction if you used to frequent the board and just recently found us again) if you want to. Even if it's just to pop in and say hello! The more the merrier! As it says in the first post of the Roll Call 2006 Thread, "Regulars, newbies, lurkers, we'd love to "meet" everyone!"
Q: What’s the GUEST CHEF? (daily):
*A1. To help spice things up and get to know each other a little better, our daily WFD threads are started by our Guest Chef. The person who is Chef of the Week aka Guest chef starts the daily WFD Monday through Friday, and then the Weekend Version “What’s For Eats This Weekend” thread as well.
Anyone can sign up to be a guest chef, you just have to make the request by posting on the Sign Up Thread with your first name and screen name, and dates that work/don’t work for you. Based on that information, a new guest chef is chosen each week to start WFD and post a daily QoTD (question of the day) in the WFD. I assign people based on the order that I receive sign-ups so that it’s fair. This is the thread that gives some additional information: Guest Chef Sign-up.
*A2. Being a guest chef means you get to start the daily What's For Dinner threads for a full week. When you post as Guest Chef, you also tell us a bit about yourself in a GTKY sort of fashion. What you share about yourself is up to you. Many of our Guest Chefs give a sort of autobiography in addition to sharing some of their favorite recipes. The Guest Chef also chooses a QOTD each day in the WFD thread.
*A3. There will be weeks where there hasn't been a guest chef assigned, at which point any member may start the (single) daily WFD thread and a QoTD to go with it.
Q: What’s the RECIPE REVIEW THREAD? (weekly):
*A. The review thread is one of the best places to go if you want to know FOR CERTAIN that particular recipes from other board members have been tried and reviewed. When a cook (any board member) tries a recipe, they post a review of it in the Recipe Review thread. All reviews are welcome. If you made some alterations or substitutions to the recipe, please share those too and let us know if it improved the recipe or not.
PLEASE make your review as detailed as you can. Simply posting "This was yummy you HAVE to try it" doesn't tell us much. If you enjoyed the seasoning or blend of flavors or the texture, then say so! If you found it family friendly, that's good to know. If it seemed complex but great for company, we need to hear that too. We don't mind negative reviews either, in fact we appreciate them... otherwise it's not very balanced and doesn't account for differences in tastes or kitchen disasters or just a plain old "bad" recipe.
Q: What if I have a Bad or Negative Review to post?
*A. Yes, it’s wonderful to see positive reviews but realistically, not everyone likes everything all the time. So, if there’s a negative review, we just ask for it to be courteous. We like to view a negative review as a chance to find out if :
1. Maybe something went wrong in the recipe.
2. Maybe the recipe just wasn’t to your tastes.
3. Maybe it really is a problematic recipe that others should be aware of.
4. Maybe it was too complicated.
5. Maybe you envisioned something different than the results you got.
6. Maybe a step was missing or the directions weren't clear.
So don’t be afraid to post a “bad” review... just make sure it’s in good taste & is polite. Constructive criticism is good and welcome. Any good chef, novice or expert, is always looking for ways to improve a recipe or discover new variations on an old favorite.
Q: What do I do when someone reviews one of my recipes?:
*A. 1 If someone reviews one of your recipes in the review thread, it's not required but it's "polite" to acknowledge the review if you've seen it.
*A.2 You may quote the original post that's reviewing your recipe BUT I have to ask that you limit the quote to the specific comment surrounding YOUR recipe. Otherwise, the acknowledgement response you make can be VERY LONG and confusing to other posters. It also needlessly "takes up space" on the thread.
Q: What do I do if someone posts a Negative Review of one of my recipes? It really hurt my feelings.:
*A1. It's bound to happen sometimes. It's just good to remember that not everyone's tastes are the same and chances are likely that the person posting the negative review truly didn't intend to hurt your feelings. You might want to check your recipe to see if the directions were correct, or ask the reviewer to clarify what exactly they didn't like or had a problem with. Try to view it as a learning experience.
*A2.You don't have to reply to the negative review if you really don't want to... and if your feelings are genuinely hurt, try not to post when you're upset. When you do post, you could always say something akin to "Ah well, I guess it's not for everyone. Thanks for trying it." Then if you're feeling generous, you might add some changes or suggestions for others to avoid the same mistakes the reviewer may have made, or some variations to make the recipe more palatable to offset the negative review.
Q: What’s the Recipe Box everyone refers to?:
*A. BabyCenter has a recipe database called Dishes, which is separate from the CFYF board. The Recipe Box is a collection of recipes that are board favorites and member favorites in a special database. If you try a new recipe, and you think it is worthy of "archiving," add it here and it will become searchable on the Recipe Box. So much easier than trying to search on the board for a recipe you want. You have to sign up for an account to view the recipes, but it’s free to do so.
There is NO POSTING by members in the Recipe Box. The link is not linked permanently on the Cooking For Your Family page because it’s competition for Dishes but it’s usually posted in the weekly Recipe Reviews thread. You can always find the link here in the FAQ's page (just click on any of the previous links in this paragraph) as well as in the Board Introduction Sticky Thread AND in the host's profile (click on her screen name in any of her posts).
Q: How are recipes added to the Recipe Box?
*A. Recipes are added by Jessica (bcHOSTJessieNHer3JellieBeanies) as they come to her attention in a specially designated thread called simply Recipes To Be Added To The Recipe Box Thread. This is a monthly bump-able thread. Simply post the recipes you’d like to have added to our database in that thread.
Q: How do I get notified when there's a response on a thread on BabyCenter?
*A. If you want to keep track of a thread and/or get e-mails when someone posts to it (aka add it to your alerts) just go to the top of the thread and there is a button called "ALERT ME " Just click on that button and when the next page comes up, choose the "alert me" option, making sure to also choose "daily" frequency. Then you'll get e-mail notification directly in your e-mail box. You'll also be able to click "My Community, and choose "My Message Alerts" to see the list of threads that you're currently subscribed to.
Q: What's the "Healthy Cooking 4 Healthy Living" thread I sometimes see around the board?:
*A.1 Healthy Cooking 4 Healthy Living is a special series thread for our members who are interested in having a support group for losing weight or maintaining their weight for any reason. It's actually the same kind of thread you may find on many of the birth clubs where moms are trying to lose pregnancy weight. The difference here is that it's open to EVERYONE who is trying to find healthy recipes and have support for eating healthy every day, especially if they find that general recipes on the board aren't diet friendly. There is a weekly GTKY question there and lots of tips and support and discussion. New "members" may join or start this thread at any time as needed.
*A.2 Individual threads ISO specific healthy/diet friendly/low fat/low carb recipes are still welcome to be posted.
