House rules

Who we are

Cooking Stories is run by Humarks, Moudanion 27, 18451 Nikaia, Greece. You can reach us at [email protected].

What belongs here

Recipes, and stories about food and the people who cook it. Your grandmother’s pie is welcome, and so is the soup you finally got right last night.

Please don’t share anything that:

• copies someone else’s words or photos without their permission
• is illegal, or helps someone break the law
• attacks or harasses a person or a group, or is violent or sexual
• gives out someone’s personal details without their consent
• advertises something or links to a shop
• has nothing to do with food

Don’t share instructions you know are unsafe. A wrong recipe can make someone ill.

Copying from books and websites

A plain list of ingredients usually isn’t protected by copyright. The way a recipe is written up, its story and its photos belong to whoever wrote or took them. Copying them from a cookbook, a blog or a magazine needs the owner’s permission, and giving credit doesn’t replace it.

If you learned a dish from somewhere, write the method in your own words and say where it comes from, for example “adapted from my aunt’s Tselementes”.

Your recipes stay yours

You keep the copyright in what you write. Sharing a recipe lets us show it on Cooking Stories to the people you chose, for as long as it is shared. That includes translating it into the site’s other languages and showing it in print view and cook mode.

The permission ends when you make the recipe private or delete it. Copies in our backups disappear within 30 days.

How we review recipes

We read every shared recipe before anyone else can open it, and again after each change. Public recipes are listed once we approve them, and share links start working at the same point.

When we don’t approve a recipe, it stays in your notebook where only you can see it, and we email you to say why. You can change it and send it back to us.

We take a recipe down when it breaks the law or these rules, for example when it copies someone else’s work. Nobody else can open it after that, and it can no longer be edited. We email you the reason, and we keep the recipe in case the decision is questioned later.

Reporting a recipe

Every recipe page has a “Report this recipe” link at the bottom, and anyone can use it, with or without an account. Tell us what is wrong and where, and give us your name and email address. For copyright, tell us where the original is and whether it is yours or you act for its owner.

We email you a copy of the report, and again once we’ve decided what to do. The author of the recipe doesn’t see your name or email address. For anything else, write to [email protected].

If you disagree with us

If we took down your recipe, or didn’t act on your report, and you think we got it wrong, reply to our email and tell us why. A person will look at it again. You can also take the matter to court.

Suspended accounts

We suspend accounts that share illegal content or keep breaking these rules, including anyone who keeps posting other people’s work. A suspended account can’t sign in, and everything it shared is taken down. We email you the reason when we do it.

About the recipes

Home cooks write the recipes here. We check that they follow these rules, but we don’t test them in a kitchen. Check for allergies and use your own judgement, especially with raw ingredients and preserving.

Changes and the law

If we change these rules, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects recipes you have already shared, we’ll email you first.

Greek law applies to these rules. That doesn’t take away any protection you have as a consumer in the country where you live.