I see a lot of interesting business ideas in what is most recently dubbed “the new economy”, the web2.0 era. “The new economy” is not a new term at all, by the way. It is a consistantly recycled term meaning whatever is new in the economy.

One interesting idea I’ve come across recently is the idea of making your own printed cookbook online, called Tastebook.

Tastebook enables authors to easily make attractive cookbooks by editing an attractive, pre-built template that consumers can order online. Sections exist for your typical categories like fish, meat, vegetables and there is a catch-all category appropriately named “Everything else”. Authors can upload their own images of recipes and offer purchasers the ability to add their own recipes to the cookbook before having the book printed and bound.

Authors can create their own theme and cover image making this already attractive book completely customized to reflect the theme and personality of the author.

We knew we had something, except for one small detail—where would the recipes come from? Sure, we all have a funky folder in our kitchen with our tried-and-true recipes. But how would we turn those recipes into cookbooks and how would we get our online faves from the computer screen to the printed page?

The answer was easy: Partner with top chefs, cookbook authors, and some of the best recipe web sites, including Epicurous.com which has over 25,000 tested recipes from Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines.

And then we took it one step further. Why not pair up with cookbook authors, editors, and bloggers, call them Guest TasteMakers, and have them create TasteBooks anyone can order or remix themselves? Oh, and yes, we definitely wanted to be able to add recipes from that funky folder. Now that’s tasty.

Heidi Swanson of 101Cookbooks.com is offering her own 50 recipes in a customized cookbook, which a great example of how attractive the tastebook design is to the eye and the hobby chef.

The creators of tastebook have obviously taken great care with regards to design as well as usability with their service. You can enter recipes yourself, you can start with an existing collection (like Heidi’s), or you can access the huge database of recipes on the TasteBook site. This database includes 25,000+ Epicurious.com (a.k.a. Bon Appetite) recipes as well as recipes from what will certainly be a growing number of other sources.

Tastebook appears to be doing a great job on collaboration, based on the sources of their growing recipe database and their collaboration with Bon Appetite. The site is really off to a great start.

Being a hobby chef myself, I think this is a great idea. The books appear to cost approximately $34.95 plus shipping, which is a reasonable price if you pack it with recipes. Personally, I have a delicious bookmark collection I could easily populate the extra 50 recipe slots with…and I’m really behind on writing out my recipes.