The Cookening Kitchen

Cookening

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Cookening Collaborative Dinner in Paris

The 9th of June, the Cookening Brigade threw a collaborative dinner to celebrate the launch of our website at le Purgatoire. This dinner was for us the occasion to meet our Cookening hosts and potential hosts eating a pour delicious homemade meal (it our our motto, no reason to change!) cooked by around 20 of our users. For those who were too far away or not available that night, know that we've thought about you eating Paris-Brest, strawberry and olive bruschettas and other delicacies just going out of the kitchen.

For those that are not following us yet on Facebook, click here to see our photo album of the event.

A video of the event  was also made if you want to admire our cooks chopping oignons or frying arancinis! To get an idea in three minutes of what is Cookening event and be ready to come to the next one, watch the video !

Because the dishes cooked during the event were so succesful, our cooks of the night accepted to share with you their recipes!

You can all find them our our online magazine The Art of Cookening.

Thanks again to all of those who came and see you to our next event this summer!

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Cookening @ LeWeb

The Cookening team was attending the International Tech Event LeWeb in London last week, as this year's topic was the Sharing Economy. 

Cédric Giorgi, co-founder of Cookening, was listed as a speaker for this edition, and talked during a 10min keynote about the biggest impact of the sharing economy: Connecting Cultures. 

Here's the video of this keynote:

And here are the slides

  Press Articles

  LeWeb was just a few weeks after our launch, so the Press was very interested in hearing our story. Following the amazing coverage we already had for Cookening, we gave several interviews:

TechWeekEurope (English)

ItWeb.tv (French)

Bloomberg (English)

Informilo (English)

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Cookening and the press

As you all know, last week, we launched our beloved website Cookening. And since then we have had amazing press articles and we wanted to share them with you. This is just the beginning, we are all so excited to share this adventure with you!

In English: 

Techcrunch: Collaborative Gastronomy? Cookening lets Tourists dine in a Local's own home

Rude Baguette: Cookening opens up to the public to turn your home into a restaurant

The next web: Eat like a local? How about eat with a local? Cookening whips up an "Airbnb for meals"

Come into land: Launch of French start up Cookening heralds delicious adventure

Mashable: Cookening Connects Tourists With Locals Through Home-Cooked Meals

In French:

L'Entreprise: Cookening: j'irai manger chez vous

L'Express Styles: Cookening.com, ouvrez un restaurant à la maison

Frenchweb: 3 questions à Cédric Giorgi, co-fondateur de Cookening

Maddyness: "Ma table est servie chez les autres", concept présenté par Cookening

Conso Collaborative: Lancement de Cookening, la plateforme qui démocratise le repas chez l'habitant

Tapahont: Cookening ouvre ses portes

Le Journal des Femmes: Cookening: montez votre table d'hôtes en 3 clics!

Les Gourmands 2.0: Cookening, quand la cuisine devient sociale

In Italian:

Tech Fanpage: Cookening, la startup francese che fa cenare i turisti stranieri a casa tua

Wired.it: Cookening, indovina da chi vai a cena?

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Cookening is now officially on! Time to launch!

Today is a very important day for Cookening. It’s launch day! After a year of development, of which six months in private alpha, Cookening is finally ready to open its gates to everyone!

The time of the Alpha private version has come to an end, everyone is now welcome to register on Cookening without any invite request. It’s also possible to check out our tables without signing up.

Plus, we have some new features, just for the launch. You can now find the meals geographically, using the map and search function. Most of our hosts are located in Paris, as we're focusing on the French territory for now. But you're most than welcome to create a table anywhere you live! We now have hosts ready to welcome foreigners into their home in France, Great Britain, Spain, Chile, Italy, Norway and Netherlands, as you can see on the map. The real goal is for hosts to welcome people from different cultures to bond with each other and share what makes them different.

Also, as we wanted to focus on recruiting French hosts for guests coming from all around the world, we released the French version of Cookening. If you know any French speaking persons that were reluctant to sign up because Cookening was only available in English, you can, from now on, tell them that it isn't a problem at all anymore!

And we would love it if you could share those good news on social networks, your friends will thank you for it. Cookening is officially ready for public consumption!

It's time to host a meal or attend one!

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Cookening at the OuiShare Fest

As some of you may know, the OuiShare Fest is a major European event dedicated to the collaborative economy in Paris. From the 2nd to the 4th of May, a global community of entrepreneurs, designers, makers, economists, investors, politicians and citizens were brought together to help building a collaborative future.

One of Cookening co-founders, Cédric Giorgi, was invited to talk the first two days of the event, during a gathering of 500 professionals and public official. He spoke about the importance for a startup to go beyond a concept and creates a product and a strong brand, with a clear vision.

The last day, the Ouishare Fest was open to the public and Cookening was there to offer them some homemade activities such as blind-tasting of french cheeses and a quizz about the geographical and culinary knowledge of the participants. We also offered to our visitors the possibility to learn how to compose a cheese plate.

We were delighted to meet all the people there and we hope that they enjoyed our little preparations.

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Cookening Meetup #1

Wednesday the 24th of April, at the Cookening HQ, took place the first Cookening Meetup, an Aperitif organized by the Cookening Brigade. We wanted to meet some of our users, talk with them and get any insight they might have for us!

To stay truthful to our values, we all cooked a little something for our guests of the night. Cédric cooked a spanish tortilla and some tzatziki to eat with the vegetables the all team cut, Théo made us some puff sausages from his native city, Lyon, Julien brought a Quiche Lorraine, Sébastien had his wife make us some salted mini cakes and Agathe came with samosas. We also offered some cheeses, cooked meats and refreshments.

All of our guests were welcome to bring something homemade to share with everyone and we were not disappointed (special mention to some amazing chocolate cookies just coming out of their oven that disappeared in a minute), we had almost too much food for everyone!

To spice up a little this friendly reunion, the famous french blogger, Mathilde Dewilde, honored us with her presence to talk about the new book she published. There were even five books to win after a quick quizz about the culinary culture of our guests. Did you know that, in France, forks are placed with the teeth down, as opposed to the British dressing way, to show the coat of arms graved underneath them? If you did, you might have won a book!

This was the first and, evidently, not the last Cookening Aperitif! We had a lovely time and can’t wait to have one again. 

See you soon!

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New homepage for Cookening.com

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It’s time to tuck in your napkins and get your forks ready for a feast! Cookening has fired up the stove which means meals and memories are finally ready to be made... In other words, we're really happy to let you know that it's now possible to book meals on Cookening! We just finished the integration of the request and payment process, allowing meals to be organized. It took a little bit longer than expected, but we're now sure we have a powerful payment and request system, for a trustful relationship between hosts and guests. Here are the main new features we've just added:

You can now send a request for a meal.

Message system between hosts and guests, enabling conversation during or after the booking request.

To finalize a booking request, contribution can be paid by guests directly on Cookening

Cookening user profile updated with new fields (nationality, needed by our payment partner, and new description fields)

We've added two charters that will have to be accepted before a meal. One for hosts, one for guests.

You want to attend a meal? Click here to discover available tables. You want to host a meal? Click here to start your table.

Below an example of tables available on Cookening. Jerôme is waiting for his first guests. Maybe you?

Although we’re aiming our attention to having Cookening meals happening in Paris and in all of France presently, we’re enthusiastic to have hosts and guests worldwide. More features and improvements still to come in the next weeks, but as always, please be sure to send us your thoughts and feedback.

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You’re the Heart of it. We want to show you the Art of It

With you at our table, we’re enlightened with new palates of culture. Now, we want to share a new spice of our own which will show you how to bring out the best savors and flavors of your Cookening experience. Introducing, “The Art of Cookening”: Cookening’s live blog designed to show you the most efficient ways to make your Cookening experience special.

We call it the “Art” of Cookening because we want to make Cookening a specific moment where you can sit back, be yourself, and absorb the cultures around you. Whether it’s the characteristic of the cuisine, or the trait of who you’re sharing it with, the moment you have will be unforgettable.

Even before the number of courses, every meal has 5 major stages: Planning, Buying, Cooking,Eating, and Sharing. Here, we’ve defined these categories so you can discover methods like how much meat to buy and what to do if you’re running late. We are also divulging your taste buds into the World Wide Cuisine Culture to familiarize international food practices.

In the Art of Cookening, you’ll learn about the origins of consumption. You’ll find tips to keep the good moods lingering even when you’ve left the room. You’ll see why to share, what to share, and how to share whether its edible or digital.

Trust between Hosts & Guests - New Features

Trust is very important to us here at Cookening and we want to make sure that the people you eat with are real people that can be trusted. This is why we suggest you connect your Cookening profile with your social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin. But today we're adding a new feature.

It is now possible to show that you have verified your phone number. This way, your future guests or hosts will be sure you can be contacted if needed. And check out your Cookening profile page to see how we've improved the display of your trust connections and verifications.

Just as food, cultures, and personalities, we think ideas should be shared too! We invite and encourage you to give us your ideas, articles, and topic suggestions for The Art of Cookening.

We're currently finishing the integration of a payment system into Cookening, so requests will soon be possible. More about this soon! In the meantime, continue to create your Cookening tables, take food pictures or send us your thoughts but above all... enjoy your meals!

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Happy Winter, Fellow Foodies!

As the weather gets chilly, fireplaces lit, and hot drinks churning on the stovetop, the Cookening Brigade is serving you simpler ways to explore your Cookening cognizance. And these improvements are only there thanks to your feedback, so please keep sending us any you might have - we love them!

Privacy

We now give you the ability to view your own information the way other users see it. They will be able to see all, or limited of your profile depending on if you have a future meal planned together.

Smoking Pets

Oops, we mean...uh....is smoking allowed at the household? You can quickly inform your viewers via your Table before a meal. Previously, there was also concern whether there were pets at the home in case of any allergies. Located right next to the smoking section, we have made sure there will be no mid-meal hospital runs by learning of a pet’s presence prior.

E-mail notifications

As we know, life can be chaotic sometimes; especially during the holiday season. We now present you with notification settings to choose which emails you would like to receive to help ensure you’ll never miss a scheduled Cookening meal!

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The Cookening Brigade is constantly working on improving the experience and simplicity of the platform. We’re very excited that the Cookening kitchen is getting fired up and tables are being set!

For this reason, we have a few new updates that will help you soon connect with your guests on a more delicious level.

Uploading photos to your Cookening Table has already gotten easier! You now have the access to all of the photos on your social network profiles, such as Facebook and Instagram, but also Flickr,Picasa and Evernote, making your photos just a few clicks away. We're sure you'll be as excited about this new feature as we are!

As you put the final touches on setting your Table, you get the chance to pick the head of the table. Simply select the photo of your choice, reposition it to full efficient flattery, and let the hosting begin.

Contacting a potential host is just right around the corner. We've release the fist page of a request, so check it out!

Guests will have soon the opportunity to share a little about themselves and have all of their questions or requests be answered.

Full requests will be available soon, stay tuned, we're still focused on finding great hosts!

Don’t forget to continue taking photos of your nightly dinner to consider it a potential dish for your Table! As we continue to connect our necessity of eating with new social and cultural connections, we continue our adventure into a new way of life.

Remember, good food and good moods are designed to be shared! The same for your feedback, we want to hear from you!

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Cookening Pre-Launch

Today, the whole Cookening team is very proud and excited to invite you to our Pre-Launch of Cookening. Don't rush to cookening.com yet, read below some instructions and information.

So What's Cookening?

Cookening has a very simple mission: Connecting People & Cultures Through Food.

A meal is perhaps the first social moment we have in our busy lifes, so why not trying to make it even more social and even more open to other people? Good food and good meals are things designed to be shared. That’s how Cookening started.

Cookening is a platform connecting « Hosts » and « Guests » around homecooked food. Hosts are passionate cooks in a city, ready to share their meal with people they don’t know. Guests are travelers to a city that want to discover the real local culture, and especially the real local food.

How to get your access

You'll receive an invitation email in the following hours, so you don't need to ask for an invite. Within this email, you'll find a link that will allow you to join Cookening!

What's the plan?

Our focus with this Pre-Launch is to find hosts in France and especially in Paris. People that want to be Cookening guests won't be excluded, it's just that they won't be able to do much for the moment.

So if you're a French person, have some cooking and hospitable skills, and are excited by the new kind of experience Cookening will bring, then join us and start hosting!

Now we need you!

As said before, you'll get an invitation from Cookening in the following minutes or hours inviting you to signup and create your own table. If you're more interested by Cookening as a guest, you can also signup, but things will really start for you in a few weeks when we' make available the reservation system.

If you love what we're trying to build, please share (on your favorite social media, on a blog, by email... anything!) If you know people that would be great hosts, please share. If you're not sure about the concept, please share with us your thoughts or concerns.

You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and soon on other main platforms.

We want to hear from you, so please send us your feedback. You can get in touch with the Cookening Brigade by answering this email or you can find us on Cookening, and on main social media.

This is just the beginning. As we want our platform to bring people together through food from all around the world, what we are buillding with Cookening is big. So at the end of the day, it will be more than a platform, it will be a way of life. Join Cookening, and change together the way we connect through food!

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Work in Progress...