Pinterest - Recommendations or Ideas?

I had an interesting exchange on the blog The Kitchn recently. The poster was lamenting Pinterest fails - of course, I’ve been there. I love Pinterest, it’s a wonderful place for inspiration and browsing, but I’ve learned my lesson that not every Pin can be trusted!

Much like anytime you surf the internet, you have to take Pins with a grain of salt and only cook recipes that jive with your own kitchen sensibilities and knowledge. If something seems like it just wouldn’t work…well, you’re probably right. Too good to be true is definitely an appropriate adage when looking at recipes on Pinterest, convenience recipes especially!

Generally I don’t take people’s Pins as recommendations – I take them as inspirations for my own cooking. To me, most Pins are more “Oo, that looks good, what a great idea”, and less “I am telling you to do this because I have done this.” It’s the online equivalent of flipping through a magazine with a friend and commenting on what you see.

Not all Pins are just ideas though! My own favorite Pinboard is “Accomplished!” a board where I post all of the Pins I have actually tried myself. I repin my verdict and any changes I have made to the original idea. This is great because it’s a quick way of recommending recipes to my followers (not just oo-ing over them) without sacrificing the wonderful browsability of Pinterest. I’d love to see notes on more Pinboards about whether or not users have actually TRIED the Pin in question – we’d all be able to trust Pinterest a little more and have fewer Pinterest-fails.

You can follow my personal Pinterest with the “Accomplished!” board here, or check out the Edible Reveries Pinterest here!