Over on my other blog at The World of Scott Mindeaux, I talked about how the Food Network started their new rebranding on-the-air (beginning of May) and yet they still had that awful green with the flourishes on the foodnetwork.com website.

Well this week, they launched their new site and it looks great. A bit less crowded, but still full of sponsor ads. The site is easier to navigate and they have added alot of new code to the site to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. The site is divided into three main parts: Recipes/Cooking, The Shows and The Chefs.

RECIPES/COOKING

They say their recipe collection is the best ever now. You can search by main ingredient, host/chef/show, type of cuisine or by technique. Just for fun, I typed in Fricasse in the search field. I came up with 5 recipes, 3 o which have been on shows. The first was a Roasted Young Rabbit with Gnocchi and Fricasse of Spring Vegetables, Spinach Puree, and Morel Foam. Not exactly what I was looking for and the foam reminds me too much of Marcel from Top Chef! :)

Also in the Recipe/Cooking section are sub-sections on topics like Quick & Easy, Healthy eating, In Season Now and special how-to setions – to name a few. You can also create a virtual recipe box right on their site. Create an account and you can keep your favorite Food Network recipes right in your account.

The recipes are displayed on screen for better reading (looks like the font size increased), but you can print them out too. Did you know you can print 3×5 or 4×6 recipe cards from their site?? Now you do! Each recipe tells you the cooking times, the number of servings and if a photo is available, that is there too.

SHOWS

This section highlights the new shows, existing shows and shows of the past. They also show you whats on screen now (East Coast Times) and what’s ahead in the schedule. They have added a lot of video content, although it automatically plays when you enter the page. That’s a pet-peeve of mine.

Each show has a nice header splash graphic, photo galleries, recipes from each show, behind-the-scenes stuff and tidbits about how the show came to be.

CHEFS/HOSTS

This section gives detailed bios on the Food Network’s chefs and hosts. There is a sliding photo library of chefs/hosts that you can move thru. Once you find someone you want to know more about, click on it and it pulls up a  bio, videos and photos galore! No one paragraph bios here, they give you all the dish on your favorite chef/hosts.

Did you know that the Food Network has a series of Newsletters that you can subscribe to? Check it out on their site as well as a newly stocked video archive! In addition to all the changes, there is also a wap/mobile version of the site available for your iPhone or WAP enabled cell phone.

Last but not least, don’t forget to visit the Food Network Store online for all things Food Network to name-brand cookware and accessories.