We know that this blog hasn't received so much attention lately so we think it's time to tell you what happened since our last message.

Our food community Béchamel keeps getting better and better for each day. Since the launch in February we have fixed and tweaked many things here and there. The biggest change since the launch is though that we are slowly, but steady, getting more and more recipes (56 when I write this). Of course, a recipe community without many recipes is not an attractive one so this keeps to be our main priority within the coming months along with the iPhone app we will build.

Stay tuned for more news!

Ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to announce to you, the launch of the first of Smiling Plants' products, Béchamel.

After having been in development for several years, Béchamel is finally mature enough for us to open the doors for a limited number of beta testers.

But let's take a step back. I'm sure some of you are wondering what in the world Béchamel is. Some of you may be wondering why we're launching a sauce. Don't worry though, the answer is provided.

What Béchamel is

In short, Béchamel is about food. Béchamel is a brand new internet community centered on food. Here users can post recipes, discuss food, plan their meals and make shopping lists. Many food related web sites either focus a lot on editorial content, or product placements. Béchamel focuses on it's users.

We believe that it's time for users to have their recipes center stage, not just lurking around the edges.

How to get access to Béchamel

Initially Béchamel will only be open to a limited number of beta testers. However, we haven't filled all the beta tester spots, so we'll be giving away invites. Send us an e-mail at info@smillingplants.com. First come, first serve applies. Also, we'll be responding manually, so don't expect an immediate answer.

As you may well know, we are currently working on a project called Béchamel, an online food community. If you haven't already, we recommend that you read our page on Béchamel before reading the rest of this preview, to learn a little bit more about it.

This tour will consist of a lot of screenshots, and I think it's about time we get going.

First up, when you first arrive at Béchamel, you will be greeted by a screen much like this one. Here you can see what's happening in the community, and of course, log in.

Once you've logged in, this page looks slightly different. The way we see it, if you're logged in, you probably have some idea about what Béchamel is, and therefore we also show you things that are more relevant to you, your upcoming meals, new recipes posted by your friends, responses on the forum and comments on your recipes.

Let's take a look at one of the recipes. As you see, you can add beautiful images of the recipe, something that we very much encourage. You probably noticed the image immediately, because of how it differs from the rest of the site's design. This is a conscious design decision, we want to put a lot of focus on the beautiful images.

Let's look at another recipe as well. We support several kinds of metadata to the recipe, difficulty, how much time it takes to cook it, tags and user ratings. These ratings are one of the factors used to calculate the popularity of recipes.

If you scroll down a bit, you'll see the comments for the recipe, and if you're logged in you can add new comments.

Next, we move on to another feature, planned meals. Here you can plan your week, food wise. As you see, today I plan to have Spaghetti alla Bolognese di Magnus, and tomorrow I'll have Baked Macaroni and cheese, and kladdkaka for dessert. This planning is also used in the shopping list, so that you can easily add all items needed for your upcoming meals.

As with any community, your profile is important. It's how other people get to know you. First off, we have some quick facts, all of these are of course optional and then a description. We certainly hope that you'll write a lengthy description of yourself. Of course, your description doesn't need to be a cheap rip-off of the introduction to John Hodgman's excellent book The areas of my expertise, but if it is, I won't blame you.

And now, the last stop of the tour. Searching. While this may seem a bit uninteresting, it is hands down the best way to find recipes, or users for that matter. We use an advanced engine for indexing our recipes (if anyone is interested, it's Lucene), which makes finding what you're looking for easy. Also, note the save search link. If you are a Connoisseur member, you can save searches and get a feed or emails for new recipes matching the search.

Finally, while we do not have a screenshot for this yet, we are making an announcement. If you are a Connoisseur, Béchamel will be available in a special optimized version for the iPhone. If you're in the store, wondering what to eat, take out your iPhone, and find recipes easily. Your shopping list will be easily available on the iPhone, making the need for notes or even printed lists from Béchamel unnecessary. Easier for you, and good for the environment.