Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archive |
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| A big thank you to our friends at Castanet.Net for running our column there. If you missed any of the columns, you can read them here. |
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What's for
Dinner? Some people are fortunate enough to have several generations’ worth of recipes that have been passed down to them. Others just want to find something different to make for dinner. Guess what? It turns out that the same software can help both groups. Regular readers will know that I usually recommend free software, but this week I’m going to talk about three recipe programs that you have to pay for --- although all three of them offer a free trial. The programs are similar, and in the end, which one you purchase will probably come down to which one you feel is best for you. All three programs help you organize, search and view recipies. You can import recipes from the internet, and you can take those “in the family” recipes from your grandmother’s diary or your mother’s 3x5 cards, and store them in the computer, where you and your family can easily find and read them. If you computer isn’t in your kitchen (I can already hear people asking, “What if my computer isn’t in my kitchen?”), you can print out a recipe, and walk into the kitchen with it! You can email recipes to your friends and to your kids away at university. All of these programs will allow you to create and print a shopping list based on the recipe(s) you choose. All of the programs will also provide you with nutritional information about the recipes. Now You’re Cooking is available here: http://www.ffts.com/. There are links to useful tips about the program right on the front page of the website. They offer a range of prices, from $25 (all prices in US dollars) to $39, depending on whether you just want to download the program or have it on a CD with manual and/or free upgrades. Now You’re Cooking comes with a spell checker in 14 languages if you order it on a CD. Big Oven, available here: http://www.bigoven.com/ costs $29.95 whether you download it or order it on a CD. They also offer a “starter version” for $9.95, which is feature-limited. There is a free trial of the full version available. You start with about 4,000 recipes and have access to 150,000 more through the Big Oven website. Of course, like the other programs, you have access to all the recipes on the internet, not just the ones on the products’ websites. But the Big Oven people make it easy to search their site by keyword, or ingredients. The Living Cookbook, available here: http://www.livingcookbook.com/, offers all that as well as an online demo. In addition to the features I’ve already mentioned, you can keep a kitchen inventory, and you can publish your cookbooks in Word format. You can “resize” a recipe. For instance, if a recipe serves four but you’re having seven to dinner, it will change the amount of ingredients for you. The cost is $29.95, and you can download a trial version before you pay. Their website has extensive help information on it, including tutorials that show you how to perform not only the basic tasks, but the more complex (optional!) tasks. Want to add a keyword like “diabetic” or flag recipes that a favourite relative really enjoys (or does not)? You can do that, and search on that term later on. A more extensive comparison of these products, along with some others I didn’t mention here, is available on the Living Cookbook website, here: http://www.livingcookbook.com/features/compare.htm So now you can get started with a fair number of recipies, add your own favourites, find more on the internet, organize them all, search them all, plan a meal, make a shopping list, and you’re good to go! What’s for dinner? Related links: --- © Cate Eales 2005 - All Rights Reserved |
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