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Editorial: This is the seventh of a series of reflection posts from Recipe Project contributors and editors.By Katherine Allen and Sally OsbornWe’ve both had the privilege of being regular contributors to The Recipes Project for the past five years, and we’ve found it a really rewarding experience. Life as a PhD researcher can be a little lonely and disorientating, and it’s been fascinating to be able to get glimpses into other people’s research, activities and thinking in so many diverse and yet still relevant areas.Katherine says: My first post was on distillation in eighteenth-century recipe books, with a case study on Rebecca Tallamy’s unique manuscript. I wrote that post to introduce my work to the public on a digital platform —  a task I agonised over, since I’d never shared my thoughts and writing with such a large audience — and I used the opportunity to develop my ideas at an early research stage.[caption id="attachment_281" align="aligncenter" width="247"] From Katherine's post The Art of Distillation Image: Wellcome, WMS 4759, f. 2r.[/caption]Since that first post, my work on distillation became a focal chapter in my thesis, a published journal article, and I’ve presented that research at several events, most recently at the 2017 Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry Seminar in Oxford. These past five years I’ve enjoyed sharing different aspects of my work-in-progress, including recipes and spa culture, ‘movember’ in recipe books, medical recipes in newspapers, and emotions in communicating recipes; this was immensely helpful in formulating my arguments.I completed my doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2015, and I’ve used The Recipes Project to stay connected to fellow historians of recipes as I dip in and out of the academic sphere. The Recipes Project remains my favourite platform on which to share my research relating to eighteenth-century manuscript recipe books, and it has kept that passion for scholarship alive while I’ve struggled to find a career path and permanent employment in an extremely competitive and precarious academic job market.Sally says: I started a blog when I began my PhD research and found it a useful way of trying out concepts, thinking and sometimes off-the-wall connections, and just as regular exercise for my writing muscles. I therefore welcomed the chance to contribute on the wider platform of The Recipes Project, which has become a valuable network of people with a seemingly endless range of research interests.[caption id="attachment_473" align="aligncenter" width="375"] From Sally's post Not Quite the Real Thing Image © Wellcome Collection[/caption]Like Katherine, I shared ideas at a relatively embryonic stage, such as ‘What is a recipe?’ which became part of the exploration in my thesis of recipe categories and formats. My first contribution, ‘Chicken soup for…’, was a light-hearted look at the area of food as medicine, which I developed at much greater length in a conference paper and a chapter section on diet drinks. I’ve been able to indulge my interest in the history of food more generally with posts on ‘counterfeit’ dishes and Victorian vegetarianism. There’s also nothing like agreeing to write a conference report for encouraging you to analyse and compare the presentations you attend. Now that I’m spending my time restoring a house built in 1789, maybe I ought to look up the recipes from my post on eighteenth-century DIY – and maybe even try building that ice house…While writing up my PhD I regularly visited The Recipes Project for ‘time out’, knowing that I was bound to find something there that would stimulate my thinking or point me to work I hadn’t come across before. It is so often the case that a stray comment in someone else’s writing will lead to that ‘aha’ moment that helps unravel a knot in your own argument. Two years later I still look forward to reading the diverse posts on The Recipes Project, finding in them an endless source of interest as well as research envy!We’ve both enjoyed reading posts from other scholars and continue to be truly amazed at the depth and breadth of scholarship relating to recipes. We look forward to continuing to share our love of eighteenth-century recipes and remedies, and we’re excited to see what the next five years hold for this community.