O'Neill confirmed this morning that the site's assets have been put on the market after attempts to snag a second round of funding fell apart in the midst of the April stock market correction.

"We are involved in conversations to be acquired. We have attractive assets including a recipe database and an extensive online encyclopedia that rocks," O'Neill said.

It will be a pretty tough sell. OneBigTable.com's assets are limited to intellectual property, which bankruptcy experts say are tough to place a pricetag on. This was evidenced by the recent bankruptcy sale of APBnews.com, whose data and other intellectual property went for just over $500,000.

O'Neill would not comment on details of OneBigTable's burn rate (the New York Post today reported the site blitzed through some $3 million in just 18 months).

Asked to explain the collapse of the food site, she said: "I can't pinpoint a particular reason for our financial trouble. I'm not being coy. Maybe it was mismanagement or maybe we expanded too quickly. I just don't know. But, I can tell you it was a miracle we stayed afloat past June when the money ran out."

O'Neill, the sister of New York Yankees right-fielder Paul O'Neill and an award-winning author, was frank about the reality of dot-coms in the ruthless funding environment.

"We went out with a business plan that was accepted and cheered on. We built out our business model aggressively and then the world changed in April. It is almost a miracle that we are still afloat today."

In July, with cash running dangerously low, OneBigTable.com laid off 50 percent of its content support staff. Then, immediately after the Labor Day weekend, O'Neill said the remaining writers were sent home.

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OneBigTable was launched last June primarily as a multimedia company offering book publishing, print-on-demand, television and radio production services. It snagged a high-profile syndication deal with Amazon.com and was credited with building Amazon's kitchen store.

But when the company missed two payrolls last month, it was clear the company was in trouble. Added O'Neill, "We have made good on 75 percent of those missed paychecks and we're working our way through the remainder."

For now, five employees have remained on board to keep the site up and running but no one is drawing a paycheck. "We are not creating any content. We stopped building content in August."

O'Neill would not comment on a timetable for the eventual sale of the site.