The worlds first Twitter cookbook

For those of us who sometimes like our food in a hurry, Twitter is one way to share recipes for the tactfully short-handed and poetically brief.

And yes, it is possible to describe a recipe in 140 characters. American amateur cook, Maureen Evans has got pretty good at it - so good, in fact, that she developed the first ever Twitter cookbook.

Released last month, Eat Tweet (Artisan US) compiles more than 1,000 tweeted recipes from Evans' @cookbook account, which she still updates with new creations, like Whisky Apples, Roasted Tomato Sauce or Eggs Berlin: shallots, thyme, lemon, pumpkin and poached eggs. (This sounds really nice actually, I may be making it myself.)

Here's an example of how she works - "3c shallot/⅓c olvoil h@low; +6c zuke 20m@low to tender; +¼t thyme/lem&garlc/s+p. Top 4pce pumpernickel tst; +4poachedegg/basil." For those who might be wary of translating what she calls Twitterese, Evans has posted eighteen decoded recipes on her Huffington Post blog, including Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon.

Thankfully the book also contains a dictionary of terms like tst (toasted), and I have to say this is really needed for people who are mentally challenged and still can't figure out what "c" stands for above. Evan wrote on The Huffington Post site, "The abbreviated form might be a little intimidating at first, but with the aid of the glossary, it will soon become like a second language for you."

Once you start looking at her twitter account (@cookbook) it gets kind of addictive and there's loads of stuff there which sounds mouthwatering, impossible as that sounds in 140 characters with no pictures. I guess some technologies have made our imaginations work harder - I'm not saying twitter-length recipes will take over the world but as a means to impart cooking information quickly or to share recipes there can't be a better tool, all we have to do is learn a little more of Twitterese.

Doh! just realised that "c" is cup. Nobel prize for deciphering abbreviated English landing in my postbox any moment. For food news, recipes, links and an attempt at occasional humour I'm also on twitter - @campbellsuz