Site turns online recipes into a bound cookbook

If you've ever wished your online recipe collection wasn't chained to your computer, there's a new service that might help.

The recently launched TasteBook Web site (www.tastebook.com) turns digital recipe boxes into ring-bound custom cookbooks. Still in its infancy, the site has limited application at the moment. But it does have great potential.

For now, TasteBook is linked with the culinary Web site Epicurious.com, which means users can import recipes and photos from that site's tremendous database (drawn from Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines).

Users also can add their own recipes to TasteBook accounts, then add them to their books, which cost $34.95 for 100 recipes.

Once users select their recipes (except for personal recipes, everything is drag-and-drop) and cover art, the attractive and sturdy books are printed and delivered in about a week.

Recipes are limited to those on Epicurious.com or those whose users are willing to type in manually. The company promises that in 2008 users will be able to link to numerous other online recipe sources.