Twecipes – Chefs Cook Up Recipes with Twitter

Everyone who uses Twitter knows that Twitter limits all tweets to 140-characters.

That means some people get very creative with their abbreviations and phrasing in order to squeeze every last bit of information into those 140-characters.

But even with that restriction, it is possible to write TWECIPES aka COOKING RECIPES in those 140 characters.

Sure, you need to know the nomenclature (“T” is Tablespoon, “t” is teaspoon), but anyone experienced in the kitchen should be able to figure out what the tweet is trying to communicate.

Here’s an example twecipe, so you can see what we’re talking about:

Chocolate Mousse: beat 4eggwhites. Gently melt200g/7oz drkchoc; slowly+3T butter&hot h2o&espresso. Cool down; mix+4yolks. Fold all; chill2h.

See?  It’s easy!  Other recipes may be a bit more complicated.

Twecipes even made it into the New York Times when the Times ran a twecipes contest to see who could shorten a recipe down to its core in 140-characters or less.

Interested?  Here are some twecipe folks to check out:

• Maureen Evans: http://twitter.com/cookbook
• Karen Soloman: http://twitter.com/chef140
• Lucy Waverman: http://twitter.com/lucywaverman
• Martha Stewart: http://twitter.com/marthastewart
• Rick Blayless: http://twitter.com/Rick_Bayless
• Chef Pete: http://twitter.com/chef_pete

Twecipes are not for everyone, however.  Christopher Kimball, the publisher of Cook’s Illustrated magazine, shared this thought on twecipes:

“The fact that you can do it on Twitter doesn’t mean that you should do it on Twitter.”

How true, on so many different levels.