Privacy

Page visits are counted, using Umami, which runs on the same server as the site. Nobody else gets a copy.

One thing besides visits is counted: each time someone asks SteveBot a question, Umami records that a question was asked. Not the question, not the answer, just that one happened.

It sets no cookies. It stores nothing on your device. There is no consent banner on this site because there is nothing to consent to — not because someone decided you would not mind.

What it records is: which page, roughly where in the world, what kind of device, and which site you came from if any. Your IP address is used to work out the first two and is then thrown away — what is stored is a one-way hash, so the record says “the same person read two recipes” without ever saying who or where.

If you would rather not be counted, the switch below does it, and any tracker blocker stops it too — the script loads from another address, so blockers catch it like any other. Nothing on the site breaks when it is blocked; that is tested rather than hoped for.

Your email address is kept, in the site’s own database and at Resend, which is what actually sends the mail. That is the whole list: an address, and the date you added it.

It is used to send you the newsletter. It is not sold, traded, or handed to anyone else, and it is not used to send you anything you did not ask for.

To come off the list, use the unsubscribe link in the email, or send a message and it will be done by hand. Nobody will ask you why.

The contact form keeps what you typed — your name, your email address and your message — so there is something to reply to.

It also stores a scrambled fingerprint of your IP address. That is there so that fifty messages from one place can be spotted as fifty messages from one place. It cannot be turned back into an address.

SteveBot is a model from Anthropic reading from the Drink Book. When you ask him something, three things go to Anthropic so he can answer: your question, the recipe, Ramblings or video transcript text the site found for it, and the last few turns of your conversation. Anthropic handles it under its terms for sites that use it.

The conversation is kept here for 90 days, so Steve can read where SteveBot got it wrong, and then it is deleted. It is not tied to a name, an email address or an account, because none is asked for. What is stored alongside it is a scrambled fingerprint of your IP address, like the contact form’s but made differently, so the two cannot be matched up. The limits on how often anyone can ask are counted by a scrambled fingerprint too. None of them can be turned back into an address.

There is no cookie. The conversation you see is kept in this browser tab only: reload and it is still there, open a new tab or close this one and it is gone from your side. Because nothing links a conversation to you, there is also no way to look yours up, so the simplest rule is not to tell him anything you would not tell a stranger at a bar.

Video pages show a still image, not a YouTube player. Nothing from Google loads, and no Google cookie is set, unless you press play — and when you do, it uses YouTube’s no-cookie player. Watching a video means YouTube sees you, which is unavoidable; looking at the page does not.

The site runs on Railway. Its photographs are served by Cloudflare, which also handles the domain. Email goes through Resend. SteveBot’s answers are written by Anthropic’s model, which sees what is described above. Each of them necessarily sees the traffic it handles.

There are no advertising trackers, no analytics beyond the one above, no social media pixels, and no third-party fonts loading from anywhere — the typefaces are served from this site.

Unsubscribe with the link in any newsletter. To have a contact message deleted, or to ask what is held about you, send a message — it goes to a person, and the answer will be a real one.