Stefan (interaction designer & co-founder) took a break from hacking and left for a week long vacation to Genoa, Italy. I realized that by using tags, I can use Cuuks to compile a list of interesting foods for him to try. I used the tag liguria for the ingredients and compositions listed below. (Tags can be typed into the search bar on www.cuuks.com)
Last month I was staying with friends in Cavi. It was a fantastic time for me in terms of experiencing outstanding food. The people in Liguria are food fanatics and enjoy talking about it. They all agree that no other place on earth has healthier and better tasting ingredients than the ones they enjoy every day. Here is a list of scrumptious food to taste when visiting Cinque Terre and Liguria:
1. Foccacia: You need to taste it again. It’s a different story here. A religion almost. To understand, get it fresh and plain from a panificio, then move on to the famous Foccacia di Recco made with fresh, light and salty cheeses (formaggetta and stracchino). When well made, the consistency is similar to a very thin and salty cheesecake.
2. Anchovies (acciughe marinate): Marinated in lemon juice, white wine vinegar and olive oil
Some say that the anchovies of Monterosso have a particularly well-balanced flavor. I could eat them every day especially when paired with a glass of…
3. Vermentino (tagged: grape, varietal, floral, mineral, honey, resinous). You might find a place where you can get some straight from the barrel (vino sfuso), filled into PET bottles. That cheap house wine is often very good. Another great white, the Cinqueterre is made of at least 40% of Bosco grape, and up to 40% of Vermentino and/or Albarola. A perfect aperitivo. During this evening ritual it is customary for restaurant to kepp the small bowls on your table permanently filled with free salty snacks. And you stay a bit longer and maybe order another glass to go with the sunset.
4. Olive oil – Ligurian olive oils are delicate and fruity. Many have a hint of bitterness which is part of their character. It is worth bringing a few bottles home.
5. Pansoti con salsa di noci: Pasta stuffed with ricotta, borage flower and herbs topped with salsa di noci: a sauce made of walnuts, walnut oil, bread,garlic, marjoram, olive oil and cream. This has become a staple menu item in Liguria. Choose wisely my friend and don’t fall into a tourist trap.
6. Ricotta cheese from Val d’Aveto and and Val Graveglia. It is used in ravioli and sweet cakes. The fresh whey cheese tastes really good with foccacia and local olive oil.
7. Pesto Genovese is traditionally ground in a mortar and consists of basil, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts (or walnuts) and a mixture of parmigiano-reggiano and pecorino sardo.
Trofie (rolled strip of pasta cut into little pieces and twisted into their final shape) and Trennete (flat, dried ribbon) are classic pasta varieties to eat with Pesto Genovese.
8. Fish and seafood. Fish and seafood play a very important role in the local cuisine. I’m a big fan of sea bass (spigola/branzino), gilt-head bream(orata), mackerel (sgombro) , sea bream (pagro) and huge servings of mussels (cozze).
9. Chickpeas. Used in Farinata. A hard-to-describe mixture between a pizza and a pancake, with a unique texture. Consists of chickpea flour, water and olive oil. It is usually eaten plain, but sometimes seasoned with rosemary, black pepper and sea salt.
10. Sciacchetrà – Amber colored straw wine. Sweet but not overly so with mineral elements. The grapes are dried in the sun, handselected, processed by natural fermentation. Apricot, pineapple, herbs, citrus and benzaldehyde (bitter almond) aromas are often present. Low yields make it rare and famous. People say they can taste the sea in this wine.
The ingredients listed in bold are tagged with liguria on www.cuuks.com (click on ‘more suggestions’ to see the whole list) Make your own compositions with these e buon appetito!
Update:
Bug fixing ‘favorite users’: Now they should be correct.
Bug fixing ‘Notifications’: No more notifications when you comment on your own compositions.
User Profiles: You can upload an image file (PNG, GIF or JPG). Maximum filesize 50kB!
What is new?
Startpage: Moved instructions panels to the right to make room for suggested ingredients and compositions. You can now start combining right away by clicking on a composition or ingredient.
Design: Lighter shades of black for the title bars. Made some things bigger, others smaller. The overall effect should feel lighter and give you a clearer idea of how this thing works.
Notifications: Automatic notifications for ‘comments’ & ‘likes’. Gets you more involved when you know what’s going on. Preferences to turn that on and off.
Permanent login: The hassle of having to login anew every time is no more!
Enjoy this version while it lasts- it’s a good one!
For feedback & ideas go to
http://www.cuuks.com/forum or http://www.cuuks.uservoice.com
In cuuks you can click on any username to see his or her profile.
On your own profile you can add a short bio and upload a profile picture Use an image file that is smaller than 50kB with file extensions PNG, GIF or JPG . You can also type in the address of your website and cuuks will automatically link to it.
If you already have a few public compositions to show off with – then your most recent compositions will be listed here.
Other users may click the Like button on one of your compositions. The profile page then shows popular compositions and your biggest fans.
If you have already clicked that button on someone elses composition then there will be favorites users and favorite compositions’ tags.
The user profiles are still work in progress. You should be able to upload avatar pictures soon and see a few more relevant stats. Go to http://www.cuuks.uservoice.com to tell us what you would like to see here.
Start combining…
to ingredients:
and compositions:
Start combining…
Type in one ingredient to start with.
It can be anything, really. Whatever you find at the market, takes up space in your fridge, brings up memories…
Your favorite flavor right now. Type that in!
Cuuks will come up with suggestions to inspire you further…
Click on ingredients…
on the ones you like best. The bars you see on the right of an ingredient ||||||||| indicate recommendation strength.
Keep adding…
until you have a composition.
click on ingredients to add & click x to delete.
Tags, comments, URL’s
- add a comment: “as seen on tv” and/or refer to an external link/URL
Add a title
or not – cuuks will automatically add a title if you don’t.
Hit Save. Done.
Congratulations!
Besides creating new compositions you could also add:
- An outstanding composition you ate at your favorite restaurant
- A signature dish: Add the signature dish of a celebrity chef you like (or your own!)
- Vegetarian compositions: Good to have some more of those! (use tag: vegetarian)
- Famous classics: You find them in your dusty cookbooks.
- Seasonal compositions:. Grill recipes, summer salads, winter comfort food etc.
- Food and wine pairings: Add new grape varietals and share your expertise.
Start combining…
Hello and welcome!
Lucky you! You are part of a group of curious food fanatics and chefs. We think this project has a lot of potential. You can be part of it from the start and help us shape it into something that will be even more useful for you. Lucky us! We can only get better with a few dedicated people telling us what they think and this thing can only become meaningful with reasonable amount of user created content (compositions in the flavor archive). So, let loose!
This is what we are interested in:
a small group of smart and dedicated users to start with: join us on twitter and facebook and talk about it to someone you like.
user created flavor compositions: the more compositions you share, the better.
- a signature dish
- seasonal compositions
- vegetarian compositions
- famous classics
- barbecue and picnic combos
- food and wine pairings
tell us about anything you like, dislike, don’t understand etc
on http://cuuks.uservoice.com
or in this forum
Meet you there.
Best wishes,
Jonas & Stefan
BBCodes can be used to style the notes of a composition in cuuks:
[b]bolded text[/b], [i]italicized text[/i], [u]underlined text[/u], [s]strikethrough text[/s]
Links Typing any URL into notes will turn it into a link: http://www.example.org
Alternatively you can use BBCodes to do the same: [url]http://example.org[/url] or [url=http://example.com]Example[/url] This way you can now link compositions to a recipe-blog or any other site on the web.
Load more You can find more compositions and ingredients by clicking on the “load more – button” on the bottom right of the panels.
Find compositions by name, ingredients, tags or user. A search bar worth its salt!
Notable features added in versions 0.32 to 0.36 besides bug-fixing
Profile pages. We uploaded a basic version of user profiles. This should give an idea about other users on cuuks. The charts are computed based on compositions that were made public. So far you see: Favorite users (People whose compositions you liked)/Tags of favorite compositions/ Biggest fans (They liked your compositions)/ Most used ingredients/ Most used tags
ENTER key shortcut. I like this. Start writing- and hit ENTER when the ingredient shows up on top of the selection panel. Some sort of auto-complete. You have to give it some time to adjust suggestions for you, though. Overall it makes composing faster and that’s a good thing. I’m already fantasizing about BACKSPACE…
Comp viewing and editing. When you click on a composition title it is first loaded in viewing mode. Clicking again on notes, ingredients or the title lets you edit the composition. This should resolve some of the confusion. Let us know if this works for you..
A new version of cuuks is up and running- I am happy to announce!
New features are:
- A simplified start page:
When you start out you can now do two things: Either compose ingredients or look for an existing composition. We try to use simpler work flows. This seems to do just that.
- New panel arrangement:
We tried to think of ways to make things more intuitive. One of the ideas behind the new panel arrangement was to work from the left to the right. You have searches on the left, the composition – your workplace – in the middle and similar compositions on the right. We tried to put as much as possible on one page and save a few clicks.
- Design: The navigation bar is now on top where it belongs. We kept the red-white parchment-black theme and did a few tweaks here and there..
- Similar compositions:
The similar compositions panel suggests matches based on the ongoing search query. It’s the quick way to find an existing composition that matches an initial idea.
- Adapt compositions:
Cooking is an evolving art. With this feature you can adapt existing compositions and adjust them to your taste. You can edit any composition that was made public.
Happy to have you on board! We are looking for more people who can make use of this. If you know other chefs and foodies who might like to play with this-tell them about cuuks! We are curious to find out what it is used for.
We are still having fun imagining the possibilities of cuuks.com and it just keeps getting better. There is more to come.
Best,
Jonas
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