So we were sitting around at lunch, talking about recipes and copyrights ...

Isn't that what everyone does at lunchtime?

This was prompted by hearing from a pal that a columnist who she had praised, posted a recipe, and linked to reciprocated by threatening her with copyright violation over said recipe. You can't bring up a subject like that without Tom checking out the details.

Now, I don't know just how much of the column's artistic interpretation was used as I haven't seen the actual post, however, if it was just a recipe and the instructions ... the columnist was uninformed about copyright law and recipes.

Here is a link to the place that was the most understandable on the whole issue. Interesting reading, especially as they show the derivation of reasoning for various judgments. In a nutshell, lists of ingredients and whatever method is used in preparing and combining the ingredients are not copyrightable.

Plain common sense.

UPDATE
This blogger went to a lawyer who gave her the same answer about the issue.