Thank you so much for all of the questions via email, comments, and social media – I really appreciate them all! Connecting with readers and sharing stories makes all the time and effort put into The Forked Spoon worthwhile.
Here are the most frequently asked questions that I receive:
I personally read every single label of food I buy for myself and my family, so I truly appreciate the importance of nutritional labels when buying food. When cooking a recipe, specific ingredients can vary in nutrition depending on size, ripeness, brand, and even in different seasons.
We create the recipe cards at the bottom of the recipe posts with the Word Press plugin WP Recipe Maker. WP Recipe Maker utilizes the Spoonacular API to calculate the nutritional information from the ingredients I list on the recipe card. Because ingredients can come in various sizes, ripeness, and brands with differing nutritional qualities, this API is not perfect, and I do sometimes modify the data for information that I feel is not 100% accurate. As such, the nutrition information provided on all my recipes is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and specific ingredient brands. Please use this information as more of an approximation or guide.
The serving size of any given recipe would be the weight of 1 serving. Thus the weight of any given serving would heavily depend on how the specific ingredients that you buy and how those ingredients are prepared in your kitchen. With this in mind, and the information provided in the “How do you calculate the nutrition information” section above, it becomes unpractical to provide an exact serving size given the outcomes in everyone’s kitchen will be slightly different from one another.
This is such a tricky question because I genuinely love every recipe I put on the site. A few of my favorite recipes that I am always making repeatedly are Jambalaya, Pozole, and Chicken Soup.
Yes, I do. Working with Brands/Companies that I genuinely believe in is one of the few ways to keep this website running with the many expenses: website hosting, website development, essential food blogging equipment, word press plug-ins, staff, contractors, software, photography props, etc. You can find more information about how I collaborate with brands on my work with me page.
After leaving a Stanford University School of Medicine staff position, I lived as an Au Pair in Germany for six months in 2012. My first public blog was Lost & Found on Blogger. When I created The Forked Spoon, we imported all of those old German travel pages, and you can read about some of my other global travels.
There are two answers to this:
1. Recipes: No. At this time, I do not allow republication of my post or recipe text without prior consent in any format, be it a website, social media platform, video, or in print. This means that you cannot copy and paste any part of my recipe or blog post and republish it. This action negatively impacts how The Forked Spoon is viewed by search engines and is a terrible internet practice. Also, it causes copyright issues. Please be respectful of the many years I have put into my website. If you make a recipe inspired by one from my blog, I’m so happy that you did. Please link directly to my blog post as the recipe source and ensure that nothing has been copied. If you have a specific question about the best way to cite a recipe, please feel free to email me at jessica(a)theforkedspoon.com or see my contact page.
2. Photos without recipes: YES! I would be honored for you to share one of my photos with proper credit, and you do not need to email me to ask. Please credit any photo you use with two links, one back to the direct recipe post and one back to https://theforkedspoon.com
Yes, I do! I created a page specifically to answer some of my regularly asked questions about my photography and food blogging tips on my Essential Food Blogger Resources page.
You can read all about me and The Forked Spoon’s journey on my About page.
