It’s no secret that AllRecipes.com — the wildly popular online recipe site — is on the auction block. In fact, Reader’s Digest — which gobbled up AllRecipes for $66 million in 2006 — has publicly said that it plans to unload the property.

The auction process is now coming to an end, and The New York Post has the scoop on some potential suitors for the Seattle company. According to the Post, Random House is part of a “bidding war” that could push the price above $200 million. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that AllRecipes — which claims more than 24 million monthly visitors and is led by Lisa Sharples — could fetch between $100 million to $200 million.

Random House already publishes cookbooks by Julia Child; Rachael Ray; Giada De Laurentiis and others.

The Post also reports that Meredith, the magazine publisher which earlier this year purchased “Every Day with Rachel Ray” from Reader’s Digest, is in the running for AllRecipes. (Meredith already operates Recipe.com). Also making a run at the company is Scripps Interactive, the operator of Food Network which purchased Seattle’s RecipeZaar in 2007.

AOL also has been a rumored suitor.

But perhaps the most interesting tidbit from the report is that Amazon.com may be in the running for AllRecipes, a move that could help bolster its content offerings on the Kindle Fire.

Amazon also would be interesting since both companies are located in Seattle.

Seattle entrepreneur Steve Murch, who runs BigOven, a competing online recipe site, said he thinks it makes a lot of sense for a traditional print publisher to make a move on AllRecipes.

“There’s clearly an opportunity for smart publishers who see their distribution going digital to snap up consumer-facing verticals and platforms for their content,” Murch tells GeekWire. “In the cooking world in particular, recipes have markup that go beyond simple e-book format — consumers want to be able to get nutrition facts for recipes, search recipes using include/exclude filters, add recipes to a grocery list and calendar, get their recipes mobile devices, track recipes consumed and measure their diet impact, and much more.  I think we’ll see the evolution of the e-book format to specific verticals with more specialized markup, and cooking is a major one.”

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.