This page describes the standards Piscine holds itself to. We publish it because readers deserve to know how their kitchen reading is made, and because we want to be held accountable to it.
Recipe testing
Every recipe published on Piscine is cooked at least three times before it appears on the site. We test in our home kitchen using equipment that home cooks are likely to own — a heavy pot, a sheet pan, a chef’s knife, a digital thermometer. We test at a standard residential stove temperature; we note when a recipe is sensitive to oven calibration or pan thickness.
If a recipe does not work reliably across our tests, we revise it or we do not publish it. We try never to ask readers to guess.
How we choose what to write about
Topics are chosen by the editors based on what we are cooking, what is in season, what readers ask us about, and what we believe is missing or poorly explained elsewhere. We do not accept payment, products, or trips in exchange for editorial coverage.
Sources and citation
When a recipe is adapted from someone else’s work, we say so plainly and link to the original where possible. When a technique or claim about food comes from outside our kitchen — a cookbook, a food scientist, a culinary tradition — we credit the source in the article. We do not present other people’s work as our own.
Independence and funding
Piscine is reader-supported. The site is free to read in full. We do not run banner advertising on recipe pages, we do not accept payment for editorial coverage, and we do not currently participate in affiliate programs. Our equipment and ingredient guides do not link to retailers.
If any of this changes, we will state it on this page before the change takes effect, and we will label sponsored content clearly and separately from editorial.
Accuracy and corrections
We try to get things right the first time. When we don’t, we correct them quickly and publicly. Substantive corrections are noted at the bottom of the article with the date and a brief description of what was changed.
If you believe something we have published is inaccurate, please write to corrections@piscine.us. Include the URL and as much detail as you can. We read every message.
What we do not do
- We do not give medical, nutritional, dietary, or therapeutic advice. We are cooks and editors, not clinicians.
- We do not publish recipes that make health claims (“cures,” “heals,” “detoxes,” “boosts immunity,” and so on). Food is food.
- We do not use generative AI to write recipes, headlines, or articles. We may use software tools for spelling, image compression, and accessibility checks; those are not the same as letting a machine compose the text.
- We do not buy or sell links, and we do not accept guest posts.
Use of photography
Photographs published on the site were taken in our test kitchen, licensed from photographers we credit by name, or used with permission. We do not pass off generated images as real food, and we do not retouch food photographs in ways that misrepresent the recipe.
Reader privacy
What we collect and how we use it is described in our Privacy Policy. In short: we collect as little as we need to run the site and the newsletter.
Updates to this policy
This page was last updated on March 1, 2026. We will note future changes at the bottom of the page with a short summary and a date.