A lot of what is interesting in food is understanding where it came from and how it was prepared. You might enjoy this website more if you know its story too.

First of all, much thanks to Tyler at What We're Eating for making our website look great! He came in like Superman a couple weeks before we opened and recreated our Drupal theme.

This website was built and is run on almost mostly open-source, free software using a standard out-of-the box iMac running Leopard OSX. Here's the recipe. Mix with lots of work and internet help forums. Simmer for a few months and enjoy!

* iMac ($1,300)

* 500GB external hard drive to back up all your hard work ($150). Backups are all automated using Time Machine which comes on the Mac.

* Standard home DSL service with a dynamic IP address ($30 / month)

* DynDns.com for the domain names and DNS service to work with the dynamic IP address ($40 / year)

* Apache 2 Webserver - comes standard with OSX. (You don't need MAMP with Leopard) Turn it on and off under System Preferences - Sharing - Web Sharing. Configure httpd.conf, httpd-vhosts.conf, and .htaccess.

* Install Trac, the ultimate to-do list for group projects. Whenever you think of something that needs to get done, put it in Trac. Nothing will ever be forgotten and you'll get out of the habit of having good ideas and not following through. Use Google Calendar too.

* Install MySQL and set up a database. You don't need phpMyAdmin (I had trouble installing it). You can use the command line to create the database.

* Install Drupal, the content management system used for this website.

* Configure php.ini per Drupal install instruction, install GD libraries, ImageMagick, and Gallery2 and finish configuring Drupal. Install all sorts of cool modules to make Drupal do fun things.

* Install Aptana Studio to make editing all your files easier.

* Design website using templates. Input website content.

* Set up email subscriptions through feedburner.com, website statistics through google.com/analytics, and email with a custom domain name through Google Apps.

* Take video for your blog using almost any digital camera, edit them with iMovie (comes with Mac), and upload them to Google Video for posting on the website. Host your own photos to post on the website. Install Gimp so you can resize and edit them.

This is the summary recipe of course. I have pages of notes and online articles that I can send you if you're interested in setting up a similar system. You have much more control over your configuration and get a pretty good idea how the software on your computer makes all this happen. It's actually quite fun! Open-source and free is amazing! And the costs above and beyond buying your computer are minimal. I remember companies paying tens of thousands of dollars about five years ago for software like this. Email me at dennis@searocketbistro.com if you have any questions.

While I'm at it, I might as well link you to the open-source math project my brother William Stein started and heads up, Sage.