Conference turris::cooks

If you live in the Boston area, the Boston Globe (I think it was today's, 
but since I also looked at Sunday's paper this a.m. I cannot be sure.) had an 
advertisement for their own software package.  The software included 
recipes and other stuff related to cooking and nutrition.  It was $29.95 
and orderable by mail.

I do not trust my lousy memory to remember to bring in and post the 
specifics so if anyone else gets the paper, can you try and remember as 
well.

Barbara

    I have a PC based recipe software package.  I wrote about it in topic #
    3132.  Its pretty good, but does have its share of problems...
    
    Sarah

    Re .1 I've seen the ad for the Globe and will probably get that. I was
    just looking for recommendations on some of the packages found in Radio
    Shack or Walden Software, etc. 
    
    I'll also check note 3132.
    
    Debbie
    

    Re: .2
      Sarah,
       Did you ever resolve the problems you outlined in 3132? Where did
    you get the software?
    
    Thanks
    Debbie
    

    I will probably get "flamed" for this question, but why would anyone
    want their PC to manage recipes?
    
    I would want my PC as far from my kitchen as possible, to avoid spills
    and water damage, etc.  If I needed a recipe, I would have to turn on
    the PC, search for the recipe and then print it out.  Just as time
    consuming as opening a book.  
    
    I have a shareware recipe program that I bought to help me organize
    recipes for a cookbook I have been working on and print them out neatly
    and in the same format for the publisher -- should it get that far, but
    I still go to my card file or my loose leaf notebooks for recipes --
    not the PC.
    
    dana  -- just curious
    

    A few reasons I can think of off hand...
    
    to calculate nutritional information for recipes that don't have
    them...
    
    For the "I have a zillion recipes for black bean soup, I want to see
    them all at once"...
    
    For the "Lessee, I have pine nuts, cabbage and pork chops...show me all
    the recipes that use those three ingredients" (aka What To Make with
    Leftovers"...
    
    For the "Where in the H*ll did I put Grandma's Peach Pie recipe" or
    "Last year I made squash soup at Thanksgiving - where did I get that
    recipe from?"...
    
    D!

    OR as a random-but-balanced-menu generator, for those of us who tend to
    eat a lot of one-food meals because we just don't feel like thinking up
    an entire meal... Ideally, this would allow one to "balance" the meal
    for various things as needed, from "high-calcium foods" to "cold meals
    for summertime" to "utilize the best seasonal produce" to "what can I
    make from the following things I found in the fridge?".
    
    But I don't know of any one package that does more than one of these
    things at a time, and I somehow haven't gotten around to writing my
    ideal package yet. ;-)
    
    -b

    re: .5
    
      .6 and .7 pretty much summed it up for me. Basically I don't want to
    take the hours it takes me now to go thru the 60 or so cookbooks I have
    when I want to find a particular recipe or to see "all the appetizers".
    WE hope to one day add a scanner so we can scan in pictures to go along
    with the recipes themselves.
    
    And the PC will be in the basement, NOT in the kitchen. 
    
    Debbie
    

    I just use the Mac to make the recipes legible and easy to replace
    when they get food all over them.  Print 2 to a page, cut out onto
    index cards, store in a traditional recipe box.  When I take notes
    from a friend or relative or TV show, a year later I can't read
    what I wrote more often than not.
    
    The Mac does my cassette tape labels too.
    
    -Doug

	I did put a programme at disposal of the DEC community last Xmas.
	Basically what it allows you to do is the following :

	you enter : a title
		    one or several origins/types (eg. Chinese, main course ,...)
		    a list of ingredients with associated quantities and
		       eventual remarks
		    the description of the recipe

	In the search mode you can make any combination of the title (or
	part of title), list of origin/type and/or ingredients.

	What it does not do : it does not calculate anything (eg. nb of
	calories, no automatic conversions, ...)

	What it was meant for : - to classify/search recipes by any keyword
	you have defined. You can easily print the recipe while consulting
	a recipe (result of a search) and take the printing to the kitchen.
	No more stains on your cooking book.
				- to import ascii files. This means that if
	you extract a recipe from notes, you can import it in the descrip-
	tion of the recipe and complete the recipe record by adding the
	title, origin/type and ingredients.
				- to exchange recipes among several users
	having the same prog.
				- an automatic update of you keywords. This
	means that as time goes on and you enter recipes, when adding new
	recipes, the keywords can be selected (with the extension *) among
	those already existing. You speed up your data entry and your database
	is more consistent.
	
	Last thing : it run on DOS environment. It comes with no manual as
		     the F1 key can be activate enywhere in the programme
		     where a complement of information is necessary.

	If you are interested, just drop me a mail, I would be glad to send 
	you a version.

	Marc

    Re; .10
      Marc,
       My husband has already contacted you and we have the program loaded
    on our PC at home. Thanks, its a start at least.
    
    Debbie
    

    So did anyone ever order the recipe software from The Boston Globe? I'd
    be interested to know whether it's any good. 
    

    My husband got it for me for CHristmas, but I'm embarrassed to say I
    haven't really tried it out yet. Maybe that should be tonight's project
    as hubby has been making subtle remarks like..."Gee, no one's used
    JOY'S KITCHEN yet!...." (the icon name is customizable).
    
    I'll check it out and report back.
    
    Debbie
    

Hi,

I've seen the above packages advertised and am looking
for "feedback" (no pun intended :^) on them.  They're both
around $50 via a mail order house.

I'm looking for a package (preferably Windows 3.x based)
that allows you to categorize recipes, plan/save/print 
monthly menus, and print shopping lists from the
menus.

Any recommendations?

regards,

Pete

OK, so I'm impatient.  I went to a PC show and this package
looked pretty good, so we bought it ($40).

This is what the box/documentation says.... we haven't put it
to hard use yet, so the "review" will have to wait:

- comes with 1,000 recipes (no limit to how many you can add)
- organize recipes into cookbooks
- search for recipes by various criteria (ingredients, meal, etc)
- build menus from recipes (no limit to number of recipes, etc.)
- include menus into other menus
- produce shopping lists from recipes or menus
- produce nutritional information on recipes or menus
- print recipes on recipe cards or standard paper
- more...

One note so far: they're serious about registering the product...
it lets you run it 10 times before cracking down... there's an
800 number to call to register that will make the package happy.
The software claims you can call 24 hours a day, but the person I
found answering the number at 8:00pm Sunday told me to call back
between 8-5 M-F PST.

    Sorry for the delay....I tried out the Boston Globe Cookbook software
    (from Arugula Kitchen Works) last night. It contains around 750 recipes
    from the Globe, plus the ability to add your own recipes (250 limit
    though). It seemed to work OK for the Globe Cookbook, although there
    isn't a "search" capability. You can choose from a list of about 15
    "groups" of foods (Poultry, Bread/Cookies/Cakes, etc), then scroll 
    thru those recipes alphabetically. It will let you make notes about
    each recipe, add the ingredient list to a shoppling list, plan menus
    based on recipes choices, modify recipes and save in your personal
    cookbook and also has some basic nutrition info. It DOESN'T give you
    the nutritional info for each recipe though, which I don't like. You
    can ask for nutritional info on eggs, or flour, apples, etc. but that's
    it.
    
    So, if you want it as a way to keep track of all the recipes that have
    been in the Globe over the past year or so, this would be good. The
    program is called MenuPerfect. That's the good news.
    
    For the bad news, the personal cookbook section doesn't work at all. I
    entered a recipe last night and it doesn't work, period. I entered the
    ingredients and all that was entered were the quantity and units (1
    cup). The actual ingredient got lost somewhere. The help doesn't work,
    you can't delete recipes once you've entered them (I now have 3
    Cranberry Eggnog Bread recipes), the flow thru the program is awful (no
    way to exit without exiting the whole program), etc. In other words,
    don't try to enter your own recipes.
    
    I'm calling Arugula today to ask for a fixed version or my money back.
    
    So, .15, how is Micro Cookbook PC....I'm back in the market for
    something.
    
    Debbie
    

RE .15 -- So what do you think of Micro Cookbook?  

						-- Nina

P.S. Will it automatically adjust the ingredient amounts if you want to increase
or reduce the number of servings? (That feature wasn't in the list you posted.)

    My husband bought one for us (CD-rom) to run on his PC.  It's pretty good!  It
    even creates your shopping list for you!  
    
    Wish I could remember the name of it... I'll look tonight... but it's
    made by a company called Chestnut.  BTW:  I've seen this one (and
    others) at computer shows (PC trade fairs) - very reasonably priced.       
    
    Rgds,
    marcia 

Has anyone had any experience with MasterCook PC?

Bon Appetit had it in one of their `ten-best' lists last December.

Thanks

bob
 

    I just had a shot at the "condensed" Micro Cookbook, and I have to say,
    the software's worth about what I paid for it. (Luckily, that was only
    $9.99, so it didn't break me; unluckily, it isn't very good.)
    
    Functionally, it looks OK; you can do semi-involved wild-card searches
    by ingredient, which is nice, and it generates shopping lists, and
    allegedly (I didn't get this far) *does* adjust ingredients for you if
    the recipe's made for 8 and you want to make it for 5. ;-) 
    
    The main problem I had with it was very basic - a couple of the files
    were garbled when I installed it and I had to repair them before it
    would run at all. Then it GPF'ed on me the first time I tried to save a
    recipe. 
    
    It would seem that it isn't terribly robust, but (if one can figure out
    how to get it to work without crashing, or can get into the rhythm of
    "use, save, crash, re-boot, use") it does offer a moderately nice set
    of features for the price. [Price ranges for nutritional/diet/cooking
    software seem to be in the discount range (< $15), the "average" range
    ($30-$50), and the "professionals on expense accounts only" range
    (+$200).] 
    
    I admit I'm not thrilled with it, and probably won't bother to try to
    work out the kinks. If one of the mid-range packages gets decent
    reviews I might try that, but otherwise I suppose it's write one
    myself, or go back to pen and paper...
    
    -b

    I was wondering if there are any new reviews of PC software for
    managing recipes, etc.
    
    I read through this note, as well as 2731, 3132, 3383.  The title of
    2731 was closer to what I am really interrested in, though. 
    
    The other day I was making lunch for my wife.  She complains that no
    matter how little she eats, her weight stays the same.  So I calculated
    the fat content of her tuna sandwich, cookies, potato chips, cream in
    her coffee, etc., and found it came to 45 grams!  Not too bad, but that
    was JUST lunch!  Our physician recommended keeping daily fat intake to
    between 30 and 40 grams.
    
    I suddenly realized that we need to be a lot more conscientious about
    what we eat.  But I am not interested in tables, books, charts and
    calculators littering the kitchen table.  I was hoping to find software
    that will help in planning meals and doing what-if scenarios and
    tracking of our progress.
    
    I stopped at a couple software stores, and was totally overwhelmed. 
    There are several packages out, but I could understand little about
    them from the glossy print on the back of the box.  I am really
    interested in accounts from people who have actually used software for
    similar reasons.
    
    I am mainly interested in calculating and tracking nutritional
    information about what we eat.  But since meal planning will be a part
    of it, being able to enter and call up recipes would be quite useful. 
    I've heard some of these programs even contain modules for creating and
    tracking a work-out schedule, and for calculating the impact of
    work-outs versus meal plans.  And as many other useful features as
    possible, like leftover planning, grocery lists, etc.
    
    I asked this in the PC conference, and got a couple interesting
    responses, but felt that this would be a better group to ask (fewer
    Twinky eaters? :-).
    
    The more the merrier!
    
    Jim
    

    Jim, 
    I have found having software for some things is wonderful. Genealogy?
    Yes! Money management? Certainly! But, perhaps its just a personal
    outlook, I have never been able to understand what the computer can
    do for one in the culinary department. I have literally tens of 
    thousands of recipes, in books, magazines, leafets, photocopies and
    extractions from this conference. Imagine the time it would take
    to organize THAT on my Mac!
    
    I find the there is a great difference between eating "right" and
    finding a recipe you like -  even if you find something with fewer
    grams of fat; it will not make an impact on your eating in terms of
    what you consume during the day.
    
    Good habits do not have to be chained to charts, calculators and 
    weigh scales (or even software!). An overwhelming proportion of it is 
    involved in a little reading and a LOT of common sense. 
    
    I don't think you were surprised that those items you cited in
    your wife's lunch were high in fat, right?  Just continue on
    being AWARE of what you eat - it'll do a lot more than the latest
    software....
    
    Sorry to have gotten on my soapbox Jim! 8-)
    
    Monica
                               

    excerpt from Dave Barry's How a computer changed my life:
    
    Bob and Dorris Pullet of Full Horse, Texas, use their computer for many
    things, such as keeping track of what kind of soup they have in their
    pantry. "It has been a real boon to us," reported Doris.  "In the old
    days, we would have to open the pantry door and manually look inside to
    see whether we had, say, chicken gumbo.  But now all I do is turn on the
    computer, enter my secret password, punch in a few simple commands and
    within a matter of seconds the computer says 'CHKN GMB 2;87;74,' which
    lets me know we have two cans of chicken gumbo with a depreciated value
    of 87 cents, or 74 cents adjusted for inflation.  And Bob is working on
    a program that will keep track of the good forks."

    Y'know, I STARTED to put in a disclaimer requesting that those who
    don't like using computers for these sorts of things to, most humbly,
    refrain from commenting on my own humble opinion, but then I thought,
    Nah!, this is an open-minded bunch!
    
    But when I decided to put a note in here, I may have been working from
    an incorrect premise.  You see, this conference is for people who are
    into cooking and recipes.  I am not.  IMHO, cooking is something that
    should be left to the hired help or the resturant employees.  That
    isn't putting down people who like to cook.  Quite the contrary, people
    who like to cook absolutely FILL this world with wonderful cuisine for
    the more portly and lazy of us to enjoy.
    
    Some people like to build furniture, or cars.  But I don't feel I
    should have to build my own car just so I can drive, or build my own
    chair, just so I can sit.  And I certainly don't condemn those that
    make it possible for me to "consume".  But I think food is a chore. 
    Cooking it, definitely, and sometimes even eating it.  Thats why I'm
    not a reader of this conference (I did sneak in to ask about pasta
    makers, but I should have gotten the hint then, when popular opinion
    pushed the hand crank pasta maker - if I had wanted to WORK at making
    pasta, I wouldn't have been buying a machine!).
    
    But my reasoning was that, being a computer company, with a
    computer-based product for sharing information (notes), and finding a
    conference on the network on cooking, that I would find people into
    computers AND cooking, and that might therefore help me find a computer
    program to do things having to do with food. 
    
    I should have taken a cue from other notes that those enamoured of the
    culinary arts may not wish to see their pastime sullied with the
    presence of a computer.  Personally, I'm quite into computers, and
    though a cook can live without a computer, a programmer can't live
    without food.
    
    And although there are applications not well suited to computers (for
    example, keeping inventory of the pantry), counting things (for
    example, calories or fat grams) is what computers do best.  
    
    Eventually I hope to evolve a healthy lifestyle.  However, going
    without pizza seems like an unusual act to a child of the "ME"
    generation of the 80s.  Till I get accustomed to the wonders of a new
    eating style that denies me my favorite greasy foods, I would like to
    have the benefit of something tangible, like a hardcopy, to confirm
    that the initial unpleasantness will indeed bear fruit in the coming
    months or years.  To someone that measures time intervals in
    nanoseconds, a week is a long time for a positive response (FYI, I'm
    not into gardening, either).
    
    So, I apologize if I misjudged.  It should have been a dead giveaway
    that there have been less than 20 notes on software since 1984.
    
    Thanks anyway!  Bon appetit!
    
    Jim
    

    If you find cooking too much bother, I suspect you will find using a
    computer to plan your meals even more-so.
    
    I would say a better investment would be a book with nutrition values. 
    For a while, when you eat something, look it up in the book.  Pretty
    quickly you'll learn what things have high fat and what don't.  Once
    you get a "feel" for it, you don't have to plan, etc...you can just cut
    back on the high fat things.
    
    I eat a very low-fat diet that includes pizza.  It includes frequent
    pizzas made with low-fat cheese and turkey sausage, and occasional
    pizzas loaded with all the goodies.  The trick is the "occasional" on
    the high fat items.
    
    As for your high fat lunch - no need to "plan" a lunch like that, there
    are easy, common sense ways to lower the fat that don't take any more
    cooking than the original.  tuna - low fat, needs no modification. 
    mayo in the tuna - use low fat mayo, and use less...or use yogurt
    instead.  chips - eat pretzels or no-fat corn chips instead.  Cookies -
    eat a piece of fruit, or low-fat cookies.  cream in coffee - use milk
    instead.
    
    I am all for using computers for things that help - I don't think it is
    because we COOK that we don't think it will help.  In fact, I think a
    computer would be much more useful for a real cook than a person who
    wants to avoid work around food.  If you really don't like putting that
    much effort in to food, to cook it, just spend a little time learning
    some "rules" and you'll be all set.
    
    You may want to check out ROCKS::WEIGHT_CONTOL.  There are topics in
    there with low-fat cooking tips (many aren't for COOKS, just ordinary
    folks who make things like spaghetti) and tips for brand-name low fat
    foods.
    
    D!
    
    PS:  For someone who hates to cook, you make a mean deep-dish pizza. 
    :-)

    Well Jim,
    I am under the impression that that was a very defensive reply.
    I didn't think I was so agressive in my note, but if it was 
    perceived as such - my apologies.
    
    And if you mistake me for a culinary snob, full of
    make-everything-from-scratch, I think I gotta correct you!
    
    Presently, spouse and I work full time. We get home, 18month old
    daughter in tow, at 6:15 pm each night. It is not practical for
    me to do much more than bring the spagetti sauce up from the 
    freezer (having put it there after its creation from a all the 
    miscellaneous leftovers not yet gone bad in the fridge) and grab
    a hand full of generic brand spagetti to cook.
    
    This does not qualify me as a cordon-bleu class master, however,
    it also does not allow me that planning time it would take to 
    fuss with software to create dinner. As D! said, its harder to
    use the software than a simple nutritional hardcopy. 
    
    And there is plenty of non-chip-based info out there that can
    help you out, at a fraction of the price, and time. 
    
    The thing that taught me a whole new universe of good eating
    was Weight Watchers. They were a renaissance for me. 
    
    Deep-dish pizza, eh? Yum!
    
    Monica

    Sorry, Monica!  I tried to tone it down, but sometimes my biting wit
    gets the best of me.
    
    No offense taken, and none intended!
    
    Call it a personality defect, if you will.  I think I lean toward being
    type A.  I am the type that "stews" over things, like a major purchase,
    for months, then suddenly - I want it NOW!  Instant gratification, that
    sort of thing.
    
    For me, knowing that I am living a healthier life style, and eventually
    will lose weight, have more energy, etc., sometime in the FUTURE isn't
    good enough.  For every calorie I cut, I want to see some TANGIBLE
    result.
    
    Of course, it doesn't work that way. 
    
    The same thing goes for people trying to stop smoking.  There are NO
    immediate tangible benefits, just craving and in the extreme case,
    physical illness.  One solution is a book called "21 days to stop
    smoking".  Its targeted mostly at people going cold turkey, and it
    describes in detail all the chemical changes going on in your body for
    each day since you quit.  It tells you when all the nicotine is finally
    out, when the cells have started healing, etc.  And it gives ideas for
    distracting or rewarding.
    
    I've often wished that someone would write a book like this for people
    trying to lose weight (also for people starting to age, but thats
    another story).  That way you could feel comforted that the discomfort
    or inconvenience you put up with as you change your life style to
    healthy eating has immediate benefits.  They won't show up for months
    (and the REAL benefit, of course, won't come till you are on-hundred
    and one), but you can start experiencing them during the critical short
    term, that makes or breaks your effort.
    
    THATS why I want a computer program.  I want to SEE how well I'm doing. 
    Positive feedback.  Instant gratification.  FAT is its own instant
    gratification.  Finding something to help you avoid it is tough.  For
    me, and engineer, numbers that show positive trends help.  My finances
    have gotten TREMENDOUSLY better (like, I'm out of debt!) since I got a
    computer program that lets me watch as my assets grow and my
    liabilities shrink.  My efforts at exercise MUST be accompanied by
    record keeping (ever since I was a kid).  
    
    I've always been a hyper, slender "kid", very active and in good shape,
    even without an exercise program.  However, as the smoke clears for
    this baby boomer, I find the old metabolism starting to fail me, after
    allowing me to have abyssmal eating habits my whole life.  Lifetime
    habits are hard to break.  I need a "carrot", if you'll forgive the
    pun.
    
    So, I wasn't criticizing cooks, of any kind, in any way.  I'm just
    trying to explain that I need something to keep me going long enough to
    develop new habits.  So most of the arguments against using a computer
    for cooking and or diet control, don't really apply.
    
    Jim
    
    (P.S.  I haven't made a deep dish pizza for a LONG time, but now that
    you mention it....   Agh!  See!  See!)
    

    Re .27: Actually, I found something that sounds a little bit like
    what you're looking for - though I presume you'd like a version that
    worked a little better and didn't blow up as often. ;-) It's called
    "Diet Expert," and I found it on the same discount rack as the cookbook
    software I mentioned in .20. ("Diet Expert," though still quirky, was a
    good deal more robust than the cookbook software was!)
    
    The software allows you to enter everything you eat, grouping it by
    meal/snack or just by day if you want; it includes a database of foods,
    including basic ingredients ("flour, white"), veggies (raw and cooked),
    different cuts of meat, and a selection of packaged foods as well. Each
    one is coded with calories, fats (saturated and un-, poly- and mono-
    and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all), and a couple of screens full of
    nutrients, and a mapping into "food exchanges" (used by Weight
    Watchers and some other diet plans). 
    
    Once you've entered a day's or week's data, you can ask it to
    summarize, and it will do its little best to supply charts (text and
    graphs) of the nutritional and caloric information per meal (with a
    daily average), give you some hints and tips as to what things you had
    too much of and what too little, and so forth. It also includes a
    "weigh-in" section (with a graph), so you could post those incremental
    improvements...
    
    It didn't have a recipe option per se, but you could "compose" your own
    recipes by simply creating a new "food" for the database, and supplying
    all the appropriate nutritional info yourself. (This was not as easy to
    do as I'd have liked; it should have had an option to add up the
    nutrients from existing database items, but I had to do that myself.
    Perhaps there's a deluxe version of the software - this one only cost
    $9.99! - that has a niftier interface and is a little more robust.)
    
    Anyway, it might be something to look into, if you're interested.
    
    -b

    Well, if what you are looking for is a program that will calculate out
    your nutrition for you, COOKS is probably not as good a place to look
    as WEIGHT_CONTROL.  I think there is a similar note in there, re: PC's. 
    I *still* think you'd be better off with a book - even what you are
    looking for, ie: quick numbers.  It'll take less time to keep a pad of
    paper by the fridge, and every time you eat something, write down how
    many grams of fat it contains in one column, and how many you are
    saving from what you would *otherwise* eat in another column.  
    
    So, say you would ordinarily have tuna w/ mayo, chips, cookie and
    coffee w/ cream - 45 grams fat.  Make the substitutions I suggestion,
    and cut the total fat to 10 grams...so write 35 grams in the "saved"
    column.  That's 315 calories in fat alone that you are saving (9
    calories per gram.)  A pound is approximately (depending on your
    weight, metabolism, etc etc) 3500 calories.  So, just by changing your
    lunch in those small ways, you would lose a pound in a little over 10
    days.  (Change your dinner and breakfast similarly and you could triple
    that speed.)
    
    No PC required! :-)
    
    D! 

    
    
    	I'm about to get a new pc with a CD-ROM and one of the things
    	that caught my eye was a CD-ROM filled with cook books and 
    	I certainly hope "BEAUTIFUL PICTURES" of what it is that I
    	will be making.  I really think this is a nice way to use the
    	computer and of course my wife is very excited about MY using
    	the computer to get psyched into doing some cooking!  8^)
    	Anyone gotten a CD-ROM cook book?  I'd like your opinions.
    

    I've tried the "Silver Palate Cookbook" CD and returned it
    almost immediately.  The lookup and search facility seemed quite
    slow (on a 486/66 with double-speed CDROM).
    
    On a more positive note, I recently bought myself yet another
    recipe program - MasterCook II.  (I've tried several in the last few 
    years, both purchased and shareware).  This one is a real winner -
    an easy-to-use interface under Windows and the ability to
    import and export recipes. You can set up multiple cookbooks, menus,
    shopping lists, etc.  Recipes can be scaled.  Multiple print formats
    are supported including 3x5 and 4x6 cards.  The file formats are
    conducive to easy backup on a per cookbook basis.
    
    In the past I've tried (and given up on) Micro Kitchen Companion,
    MenuMaster, Edna's Recipes, etc.  One recent package I tried -
    MicroCookbook V4.0 (by Pinpoint publishing) has a particularly nasty
    file format that makes it difficult to backup to floppy, and a
    Windows interface that that makes it all too easy to mistype ingredient
    measurements when entering your own recipes.  

re: -1

Could you contrast MasterCook II with Micro Kitchen Companion,
which I have but am not thilled with.

Thanks

b

Could you give a ballpark price for MasterCook II?

    It's been ages since I used Micro Kitchen Companion, but I don't
    remember it being quite so easy to search and move things about
    between cookbooks and categories.
    
    I got MasterCook II for $30 at Lechmere (not on sale).
  

    I recently purchased Recipes V2.0 for WIndows from Odyssey Woftware
    (Waldensoftware, $29.95). I'm very impressed! It comes with some number
    of recipes (don't remember how many, not a HUGE amount), but it allows
    you to create as many cookbooks as you want, the recipe input is
    form-based and is "smart" plus it "learns" (e.g. enter "t" for unit and
    it will fill in tbsp., continue typing and get to "ts" and it willl
    fill in "tsp.", same for ingredients and category i.e. fruits, cereal,
    nuts, etc). When you enter a unit or category or ingredient it doesn't
    know, it adds it to its list and the next time will try and guess what
    you're about to type. I find this speeds up the entry time
    considerably. So the receipe entry piece is very nice.
    
    It also does portion adjustments (e.g. recipe makes enough for 6 and
    you only want it for 2, its adjusts the amounts). It has a search
    feature, which allows you to enter up to 4 (I think) ingredients and it
    will do either an "and" or "or" search. This is the "I have eggs, peas,
    corn and chicken in my refrigerator, what can I make" feature. They
    have many formats of reports you can create (for printing recipes or
    shopping lists), plus you can create your own customized reports. It
    builds shopping lists, keeps track of what you have in your pantry (if
    you want to enter everything) and will tell you when you're running out
    of something if you've used recipes which use a certain product. 
    
    It also allows you to enter nutrition information about each recipe
    (their included recipes have it already), but doesn't calculate it by
    itself.
    
    And it has a couple of unusual features that I enjoy...one is a system
    for keeping track of your COUPONS. You enter all the coupons in,
    including the expiration date and amount off. Then, if you choose a
    recipe that has an ingredient you have a coupon for, when you create
    your shopping list, it will flag the ingredient. It will also keep
    track of the expiration dates and tell you when coupons expire. Of
    course, I don't know if I'll have time to enter the 100 or so coupons I
    have, but its a nice feature.
    
     The other neat feature is a restaurant "guide". It allows you to enter
    in names of restaurants that you visit, put things like which credit
    cards they take, phone, address, contact name, hours, etc. Plus you can
    put comments about each and categorize them. This I think we will use a
    lot.
    
    It also allows you to import cookbooks from certain other software
    packages, MKC and Micro Cook II might be the ones they support. I can
    check if anyone wants to know for sure.
    
    They have a technical support group you can call with questions.
    They're based in Calif. This is a real slick, very professionally done
    piece of software. I think anyone would find it well worth their
    $29.95.
    
    Debbie
    

	Did anybody see MicroSoft's Great Chefs CD ROM? Is it worth?
	Comments?

	Regards,

	Juan-Carlos

    I've got a copy of the Microsoft Great Chefs CD-ROM.  It's "hosted" by 
    Julia Child (the program name is MSJULIA.EXE ;-)) and contains a 
    subset of the chefs and recipes that were shown in her "Great Chefs" 
    TV program last year.    
    
    It contains bibliographic info, 4-5 recipes, and a video demo by each
    chef. Jacques Pepin demos puff pastry, Jeremiah Towers demos trussing
    and stuffing a chicken,  Nancy Silverton demos her grape starter for
    sourdough bread, etc. 
    
    There's also a glossary (with pictures) of ingredients and equipment.
    
    This not an extensible recipe system for storing your own recipes, but
    rather a sampler of recipes and techniques.  I recommend it on that basis.