I agree about it being the wrong medium. Standing around in a big room is a great way to feel connected and included, but a terrible way to trade recipes. Everything is either, "it's easy, you just [something that turns out not to be easy]," or involves a detail you can't quite remember.

Now that I think of it, this exchange might have come over from Facebook or something like that. With the "email it to 20 people" being an attempt to make it feel more personal? I don't know. Email is safer than Facebook in terms of protecting privacy, certainly, but my chocolate-marmalade cookie recipe is not private