I’m not an amazing cook. But I can follow a recipe!  ~Rachel McAdams

Some may know what Pinterest is, and some may have heard of it, while others have absolutely no idea.  With the booming age of social media, there are sites popping up all the time.  For the most part, I really don’t pay attention to every little change and introduction of a social media site into the vast social world.  If I did, I wouldn’t have any time to blog and use the social tools that I do enjoy using.  However, there is one that has struck my fancy, and I have really adapted into my daily routine.  Pinterest!  It’s simply a social sight of pinning pictures and videos to your digital cork boards, just like being a kid again.

As a child, and even into my high school years, I would go through magazines and tear out pictures of dresses or shoes, and pin them to my cork board hanging on my bedroom wall.  In addition, I pinned recipes and ‘how to’ instructions.

Pinterest is the same concept, except you can have multiple themed boards, as many as you want, named however creative you can get, and it’s all digital!  Not to mention, instead of a single magazine, the entire internet is your resource.  How cool is that?  Plus, you have the option of uploading and linking your very own pins.  Love it!  As with a social site, the ability to “share”, “re-pin”, “comment” and “like” is available.  You can follow others of like interest, and your boards and pints are linked to other social sites for distributing information.

Kyle wanted to make his own hero sandwich 2012

Being in marketing, I tend to see trends early, and I will admit, I do sometimes partake on the latest and greatest.  This time I did.  Statistics change, now-a-days more rapidly than ever, but I still like to read the analyzed data.   After all, numbers never lie, and with summarized data, it’s sometimes easier to understand the focus of the social tool or the particular direction it’s moving toward.  When it comes to my clients, I do try to practice what I preach.  Pinterest is, as least as per the most recent numbers, 80%-90% women.  However, a majority of the purchases made on there are from men.  Not that I want to keep throwing numbers out there, but I find this fascinating, “66% of Pinterest users are aged 35 and older, compared to 64% of the US internet audience.” according to Marketing Charts.  Pinterest themselves stated, there are 20,000 items pinned on Pinterest every day.  Estimated numbers from AppData.com, state the two-year-old site has 11.7 million active registered users.  Wow!

So how did this almost too simple idea of themed digital cork boards come to fruition?  According to my “trust worthy” site Wikipedia, Pinterest was developed in December of 2009, then went into a closed beta test in March 2010, and in March of 2011 they launched their app.  Needless to say, Pinterest is pretty new to the scene, but growing leaps and bounds thanks to Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp, the founders.

Now why this dissertation on Pinterest?  Thanks to an article I read on Mashable, according to RJ Metrics, “17.2% of all pinboards are categorized under Home, followed by Arts and Crafts (12.4%), Style/Fashion (11.7%), Food (10.5%) and Inspiration/Education (9.0%). Of those, food is the fastest-growing category.”  I did read another article that stated recipes have clearly taken the top spot on the Pinterest pins, but unfortunately when I went to look for it, I couldn’t find the article to back up that claim.

As with all things on AuntHeather.com, all roads lead back to Kyle.  I want to tell and story about the impact of Pinterest and naturally it involves one little 11 year old boy.  I know I’ve mentioned that I used to have Kyle pick out recipes in the cookbooks, and we’d make whatever he wanted.  The only catch, he had to read me the recipe and measure out all the ingredients.  This was one way to reinforce reading with Kyle, especially when he went through a spurt of I HATE READING!.  It was also great practice with measuring and math skills, always a favorite of Kyle.  Who am I kidding?  I love to cook too, and to hang out with Kyle.  Win, win for me.  Little did I know, that Kyle would develop a love for cooking AND enjoy it!  I guess that’s a win, win for him too!

Now I’m getting to the meat and potatoes of the story.  Recently, a friend of mine, Kelly, was talking about making recipes that she found on Pinterest.  Last weekend, she was sending me some good ones to try, and she wanted to start making different recipes.  This conversation reminded me of Kyle, because we started to do the same thing.  In fact, Kyle has steered away from the old fashioned hardbound cookbooks, and tends to jump on my Pinterest account for recipes.  Yes, I said he goes on my Pinterest, and yes he has the password to log in.  What can I say, the kid owns me!  I don’t mind in the slightest.  Kyle knows to go to  board, and scroll through the pictures of the deliciousness.  It’s funny how our way of cooking has changed from even a year ago.  We still pretty much follow the same system of Kyle reading off the ingredients and directions, and I assist him with measuring and mixing, and he still gets to pick out what he wants to make.

Homemade Oatmeal Creme Pies, courtesy of Pinterest

Sometimes, Kyle uses my phone and jumps on the Pinterest app to search for different recipes he wants to try.  He is too much!  Usually the re-pins are sweet treats, although he surprises me with casseroles and low calorie or natural fruit dishes.  I’m not saying I’m any better with my own sweet tooth, but I do try and limit the dessert recipes made.

It’s amazing how our daily lives have changed, children are no longer pulling out the old cookbooks from generations past.  They are downloading them and cooking other family recipes online.  In one respect, I miss the use of a good old fashioned cookbook, but then again how can you beat the wealth of information and options at your fingertips.  I guess it doesn’t matter as long as the traditions are passed down, new traditions are started and shared, and cooking brings the family together.

See the recipe for the Oatmeal Creme Pies- Puppy Problem Called Seven.