Welcome to our new site, just launched on Friday, Sept 25th, 2009!!  We’re glad you’re here!

What is this site all about? Great recipes accompanied by great photography.  Basically, we’re a fun way to browse recipes while discovering foodie sites you may not have previously been aware of.  Our “readers” get to see the best of the best of the foodie internet, and our contributors get the benefit of free exposure.  It’s a win-win for everyone!

So all I have to do is submit a photo, and you’ll publish it? Yes and no.  Yes, all you have to do is submit a photo (and answer a few questions), but we do have some requirements.  The photo must be of food – or directly related to food in one form or another – and it must appear in the blog post or on the food site that you submit with the photo.  Oh, and the photo has to be good enough to meet our high standards.  If you’re not sure, just go ahead and submit!

Do you really only add up to 40 photos per day? Yep – for two reasons.  One, only allowing so many photos per day allows us to post only those that we feel are really super awesome.  And two, putting up fewer photos per day means that each photo will get more time on the front page, which in turn will drive more traffic to that blog.  It’s no fun to see your photo published only to see it buried on page 5 within the first few hours.

Will you notify us once the image is accepted/rejected? Yes!  Well, sort of.  You’ll receive notification via email only if your photo is not chosen to be published, and if you’ve checked the box on the submission form that requests you be notified. We publish photos that have been submitted the previous day (with rare exception), and we take the best of the best from that day.  This means that your photo might be fantastic, however it just didn’t make the cut for that particular day.  We genuinely mean it when we say that it’s extremely difficult for us to cut anyone’s photo; we realize how much work it is to put up even one post, so to pass on anyone’s hard work…well, it sucks.  To help you understand why we choose the photos that make it onto the site, here is a general idea of our process:

1. View every photo submitted the previous day, read each post and recipe.  Choose the “no-brainers” – the ones that we’d be fools NOT to post.
2. Decide which photos simply don’t have enough quality to be published.
3. Of those that are left, we look at several factors:  Does the post include an actual recipe (which we prefer)?  How unique is the recipe? Have we already posted something similar that day? How well-written is the post itself, and would our followers enjoy reading it? Has this blog already submitted another photo that day (in which case we’d likely post someone else’s photo of similar quality)?

How can I get my photo in the prime headline and featured spots? Currently these spots are up to our editor’s discretion, and it’s really whatever they happen to be in love with at the given moment.  We’re a brand new site, so right now these spots are completely free.  In the future, however, you’ll be able to pay a reasonable advertising fee to guarantee a spot.  We’ll be rolling this out once traffic has increased to a level where it’ll be worth if for you to pay for it.  We also look at things such as if whatever is in the pic is “in season”, how good the caption is, and most importantly, will it look right in the wide frame we use for our headline.  Could be we adore your picture but it just doesn’t look right in that spot.

How can I get in on the action for your “20 Questions with our Favorite Food Bloggers” feature? We usually contact most of our featured bloggers before they contact us, although there have been some exceptions.  If you haven’t heard from us, here’s what you can do.  First, submit a photo.  Then another, and another, and another.  After we’ve established a happy little working relationship, feel free to pop us a note to twentyquestions@refrigeratorsoup.com and tell us all about why you’d like to be featured.  And this may sound corny, but we prefer to feature nice, polite folks that we feel strongly that other nice, polite folks would like to meet and support.  It makes us feel good, and that’s why we’re here.

Any other ways I can get my site featured? Yes!  We’re always on the lookout for great articles on topics such as cooking techniques, food blogging, personal stories and anything and everything else related to food and cooking.  If you have an idea you’d like to run by us, or would like to write an article about your blog and how you got started in food and cooking, please send us an email to contact@refrigeratorsoup.com.

By publishing my photos on your site, does that mean you can do whatever you want with them? No, no, no.  Our goal here is to show you off and expose fabulous blogs and other foodie sites to folks who enjoy that sort of thing.  Your photos will only appear here, on Refrigerator Soup.  You, as the originating site, will retain all rights to the photos.  We do, however, reserve the right to remove any photo for any reason without prior notification.

What about submission guidelines? Make it pretty.  If it looks good to you, chances are it will look good to us, which means it will look good to our readers.  Size is only limited to under 2000k (which is a pretty darn big pic).  We automatically resize for you, so you don’t have to worry about that.  After all, shouldn’t you be writing another blog post, lazy bones?

The link to my site has been dropped from the contributor’s list! Links are automatically dropped for those sites who have not had a photo published for more than 30 days.  Just submit a photo, and if it’s approved, your site will be added back to the list.  (Note: The contributor list has been temporarily removed but will be republished at a later date.)

How can I put a Refrigerator Soup button on my own site? After numerous requests, we’ve posted a widget that shows our most recent photos!  It’s on the sidebar on the right side of any page; just click “get widget” for the code you’ll need to post it on your own site.  If you’d prefer a button or banner, please send a request to contact[at]refrigeratorsoup[dot]com with your specs and we’ll have one made – just for you!  The widgets colors can also be changed to match your site.

Can I get a link that shows only my own photos that have been published? Yes!  In the search bar at the top of our home page, put in your blog name as it appears in your url without any spaces.  For example, for http://www.myreallycoolwebsite.com you’d type myreallycoolwebsite into the search bar.  You can then use this link on your own site to show your readers how many of your pictures have been published!

Why the name “Refrigerator Soup”? It’s all because of Kristy’s mom!  Although Kristy is a serious foodie and loves to cook, she’s not quite as good at cleaning out her refrigerator as she should be.  Every so often, her mom comes to visit and fishes through her refrigerator for leftovers.  She’ll take it all out, put it in a huge pot together with some yummy spices, let it simmer all day, until it turns into something fabulously wonderful!  Over the years it became a family joke, and everyone would tease Mom about her “refrigerator soup” – which they all still call it to this day.  We kinda think that’s what this site is like, except we’ve taken foods of all kinds from the world wide web, put it together on one site, and made it into something fabulously awesome!

I have more questions! Pop us an email at contact[at]refrigeratorsoup[dot]com and we’ll be more than happy to answer them.