The website aims to be an iTunes for recipes by collecting and eventually selling recipes from amateur chefs and top pros alike. Some of those professional chefs have teamed up to offer their signature dishes for charity. KeepRecipes for Recovery launched Wednesday and will feature 21 Japan-inspired recipes from chefs including Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, Anita Lo, Eric Gower, Mayumi Nishimura and Mark Spitzer. The cookbook will be available as a digital download for donations of $10 or more. KeepRecipes will donate $0.86 for every dollar of revenue to the American Red Cross.
Phil Michaelson, the creator of KeepRecipes, said he came up with the charity idea when certain Japanese products, like mushrooms, started to become sca rce following the disaster. KeepRecipes for Recovery was a way of combining the culinary traditions of the country with a way to give back. Users can request membership to the site or automatically be approved by donating to the Red Cross. Right now the all-star recipes are for charity, but they will eventually head toward a pay model, said Michaelson.
“I do think that recipes are a great way to connect people,” Michaelson said. “When I cook [a chef's] dish I feel that connection to Japan. So it’s definitely about the chefs who are cooking those recipes and their connection with the culture.”
It’s a sense of solidarity not lost on chef Eric Gower. “Japan is suffering from its worst crisis since WWII,” Gower said in an email. “It can use both monetary help and a sense of solidarity with others.” Gower is offering recipes for miso orange roasted chicken and umeboshi scallops.
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