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July 26, 2012
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Not long ago I asked if people thought that the Culinary Arts gallery needed some renovation, and many people agreed that it does. So now I'm opening this journal to discuss if we need new sub-galleries.

Right now we have 5 sub-galleries without further division:

Desserts
"Desserts that encompass cake, candy, pie, pastries, fruit, pudding, ice cream, cookies, or any other food served as the final course of a meal."

Food Art
"Featuring edible food that fits no other sub-category such as ice sculptures, beverages, bread, side dishes, appetizers/canapés/hors d'oeuvres, etc"

Main Dishes
"Main dishes include anything served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as the main course of the meal."

Miscellaneous
Everything else.

Pumpkin Carving
"Photographs of personally carved or decorated pumpkins."

For something as wide and varied as food many people agreed that they're insufficient, and a lot of things end up being mis-categorized or going to miscellaneous.  Of course we want to read the community's concerns and ideas on this issue, so don't hesitate to give your opinion they are all going to be considered.

Some changes that have already been suggested and we're asking for more feedback:
  • Re-structuring all the galleries, but how? All suggestions are very welcome!
  • Change the Pumpkin Carving gallery to "Seasonal" gallery, to include other seasonal foods like Easter Eggs, Gingerbread Houses, etc OR change it to the "Carving" gallery to include carved fruits, carved ice, etc.
  • Changing the name of the "Main Dishes" gallery to include salads, soups, etc.
  • Sub-galleries for desserts. Although, are there enough submissions to justify further division? We already received a suggestion for "Candies and Chocolate", what else?
  • A gallery for drinks and another one for bento.

Those are just a few ideas, if you have anything to say speak up now, this is your moment to be heard :la: we will read and consider all comments, be sure of that ;)


Also, don't forget that Community Week at #projecteducate is starting soon! I really wish I could participate, the past two times were so much fun... but well in case anyone wants to join you can find info here just send them a note with your idea!



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:iconitti:
`Itti Aug 16, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Possibly also
Sweet Treats > Savoury Desserts
Sweet Treats > Misc
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:iconitti:
`Itti Aug 16, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Balls, I meant to hit enter but I think I hit tab enter.

Anyway, completed suggestion for desserts:
Sweet Treats > Chocolate
Sweet Treats > Confectionery (any sweets/candies which aren't chocolate)
Sweet Treats > Cupcakes and Cookies
Sweet Treats > Ice Cream
Sweet Treats > Fully Decorated Cakes (some overlap with the Food Art gallery here)

"Sweet treats" is a silly name I know but I would have issues with it being called desserts when several of them aren't desserts.

I would also be in favour of making "Confectionery" or "Sweets and Chocolates" a main gallery (as in Culinary Art > Sweets and Chocolates). I think it's sufficiently different from the other categories to warrant it.
Reply
:iconitti:
`Itti Aug 16, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Sweets and chocolates should have their own gallery ("Confectionery"? Does it have to be "Candies"?). Not a subcategory of desserts unless you change the word "desserts" to something else; chocolate isn't a dessert.

Pumpkin carving already includes carved fruits. At least, that's where I've been told to put melon carvings and so on in the past. A rename to "Fruit Carving" would not go amiss, but in general I like the pumpkin carving gallery the way it is. I wouldn't want to see a bunch of unrelated stuff like easter eggs or ice sculptures in this gallery. If there's enough ice sculptures to warrant their own gallery, have it as a subcategory of Food Art.

Definitely agree with the drinks suggestion, there's nowhere for them at the moment. But those things where people draw in the foam on the coffee, that's meant to go in food art at the moment so the recategorisation should make it clear that this is for other drinks.

For mains, how about:
Mains > Starters and Sides
Mains > Hot Dishes
Mains > Cold Dishes > Bento and Packed Lunches
Mains > Cold Dishes > Other Cold Dishes
Mains > Breakfasts

and for desserts
Sweet Treats > Chocolate
Sweet Treats > Cupcakes and Cookies
Reply
:iconglori305:
I would really like to see a sub-catagory under deserts for cake decorating.

Mainly because I often look at the cakes here for decoration ideas and it would make my life easier :)
Reply
:iconitti:
`Itti Aug 16, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Currently cake decorating is in food art.
Reply
:iconmelijan:
~melijan Jul 31, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
I think a category for chocolates or truffles would also be very useful! There are so many kinds and possibilities to make them, and it would just be unfittingly to stuff them in the "Dessert" folder.
Reply
:iconcakecrumbs:
This is one of those things that has bugged me for ages and often when I submit I find myself wishing there was a more appropriate category -- but now the subject is up for discussion I can't think of most of the troubles I've had!

I know especially with a lot of my baked foods I'm often not sure where to put them - I dislike filing things under 'miscellaneous' so I usually put novelty cakes (particularly those with a lot of fondant work) under food art, and regular cakes under desserts. Cookies and cupcakes also usually go under dessert - though I'm not sure that's appropriate, given they're (like cakes) not often eaten as the final course of a meal. I'd find baking-orientated subheadings handy. Perhaps one for biscuits and cookies, Maybe one for decorated cakes?

Or how about a sugarcraft category? I'm not sure if there's enough fondant/gumpaste work around dA for a fondant subheading, but sugarcraft encompasses a much larger range of icing-based decorations and might be a more appropriate way of filing them?

I notice there's categories for main and dessert, but how about entreé?

As for pumpkin carving, I've never had cause to use it and probably never will. I've always thought it was an oddly specific category given how non-specific the others are. Maybe it's because I'm Australian and it's not really a huge thing here. I definitely think plain food carving would be more appropriate (there's so much stunning work carving things like watermellon that deserve to be included). I also like the seasonal idea, but iffy about the name. Seasonal to me sounds like cooking with food that is in season. I moderate a large communal baking blog and we have a "holiday post" tag that encompasses all these sorts of things - maybe a name along those lines would be more appropriate?

Just thinking aloud here so apologies if none of that is coherent. Will pop back if I think of anything else.
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:iconmagical525:
=Magical525 Jul 28, 2012  Hobbyist Artisan Crafter
Cakes are not desserts - they get eaten more often than not in the afternoon and are not really related to puddings AND are often decorated so should really have a category of their own. So not a sub category for "desserts" - I would never think of putting cake in "desserts" because it's not a dessert, and in fact the few cake pictures I do have here have been either put in as my ID or as a still life in photography as I couldn't find a cake category.
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:icondemoncherry:
~Demoncherry Jul 28, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Still needs cosmetic art category ;) But brill job sorting it all out. I love culinary arts.
Reply
:icontalty:
^Talty Jul 31, 2012   Artisan Crafter
I would love that, but I haven't seen a lot of people submitting cosmetics to artisan crafts, there's only a handful of people :( I don't know if there's enough submissions to justify a gallery.
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