Privacy Policy

We only collect information you choose to give us, plus limited, non-identifying visit information:

• Recipe comments: your name, email address, and comment. Your email is never published.
• Stories you share: your name, email address, story title and text, whether you want it shared with your name or anonymously, and your permission to publish it.
• Contact form: your name, email address, topic, and message. These are sent to us by email and are not stored in our website database.
• Email updates: your email address and which updates you asked for (for example, the newsletter, events, or classes).
• Class and event sign-ups (when offered): your name, email address, and, if you choose, a mobile number for reminders.
• Donations (when offered): your name, email address, and donation amount. Payments are handled by our payment processor; we never see or store your full card details.
• Cook Together invitations: if you email a recipe to a friend, we use the address you enter only to send that one message. Text invitations open your own messaging app; they do not go through us.
• Visit statistics: the page you viewed, the time, and your approximate location (city, region, and country), estimated from your internet address. We do not store your internet (IP) address or build a profile of you.

• To publish comments and stories you submit, after we review them.
• To reply to messages you send us.
• To send the email updates you signed up for, and to manage class or event registrations.
• To process and acknowledge donations.
• To understand which pages are helpful, so we can improve the site.
• To keep the site safe and prevent spam and abuse.

• We never sell, rent, or trade your personal information.
• We do not use advertising trackers or show ads.
• We never publish your email address.
• If you choose to share your story anonymously, we do not display your name with it.

We share information only with the services we need to operate the site, and only what they need:

• Website hosting and database providers, which store the information described above.
• Email delivery, to send contact messages, updates, and Cook Together invitations.
• Google AI (Gemini), which powers the Let's Cook recipe finder. We send only the cooking choices you select (such as meal type, ingredients, time, and mood) — never your name or email.
• A location lookup service (ip-api.com), which turns an internet address into an approximate city and country for our visit statistics.
• YouTube, for recipe and story videos. Videos use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, but YouTube may set its own cookies once you press play. See Google's privacy policy for details.
• A payment processor (Stripe), for donations when donations are offered.

We may also share information if required by law, or to protect the safety of our visitors or the public.

We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. The site uses only two cookies: one that keeps our administrators signed in to the admin area, and one that remembers the recipes you add to My Favorites.

Your favorites cookie lists only the recipes you saved. It stays in your browser on your device for up to a year, is used only to show your My Favorites page, and is never linked to your name or email. You can remove favorites anytime from that page, or clear them all by clearing your browser's cookies.

We keep comments, stories, and sign-ups for as long as they are needed for the purpose you gave them to us, or until you ask us to remove them. Visit statistics are kept in summary form to understand how the site is used.

• You can unsubscribe from email updates at any time.
• You can ask us to show you, correct, or delete information you have given us, including a published comment or story.
• You can submit a story anonymously, and you choose whether it may be published.

To make a request, please contact us. Depending on where you live, you may have additional privacy rights under local law, and we will honor them.

This site is intended for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

We use reasonable safeguards to protect your information, including encrypted connections and restricted, password-protected access to our admin tools. No website can be perfectly secure, so please don't send us sensitive information you don't need to share.

We may update this policy as the site changes. We will post the new version here and update the date at the top of this page.

Questions about this policy or your information? Please reach out through our Contact page.