Last night, I went to a relaunch event for iVillage Food. The new site launches TODAY. Celebrity chef Donatella cooked some great Italian food for us. (It made me think of the Italian recipe storyline from Desperate Housewives last Sunday. This time, the recipes were being shared though.) Donatella’s mom was also there. It was so sweet to briefly see their (mutually adoring) relationship.

Anyway, these are the three reasons that I think moms will like this site:

1. The design. There is a lot of useful content on the site, but it’s broken down in a simple (I love simple), easy on the eye format. The pictures and videos are also really high quality. They really popped out (in a good way) to me as I navigated the site.

2. The content. It goes beyond basic recipes. I especially like the “Kids” and “Pregnancy” sections. Right now, school lunches are the bane of my food making existence, so I was happy to see that there is a really good lunch section on the site. I commented to one of the site editors that they should have a “packable” lunch section for the school year. I would visit something like that every day.

3. The community. This site is simple enough for food novices (like myself) to enjoy it. There are also a lot of tools, applications and such to engage every level of food lovers. I especially like the “Twist” recipe feature. Basically, you can change a recipe on the site by adding or taking away various elements. Then, you can save your recipe “twist” for other community users to be able to see/try. Overall, the site is designed so that anyone can jump right into (multiple) online food conversations.

Take a peek at iVillage Food. I think that you will like it.

FYI: I received a meal at the event and a gift bag. I promptly gave away all of the great items in the gift bag to people who would actually use them (wine – I don’t drink wine; cute blue strainer – I already have one; and apron – I have several of them). I DID keep the cookie though – my kids will get that!