Mac Recipe Software Comparisons

On 19-Dec-2006, at 05:25, MichaelGibbs wrote:
> Although certainly not a Mangia clone, the Recipe Box from Sonora
> Graphics was inspired by Mangia and designed by a former Mangia
> user. More information is available on the Sonora Graphics web
> site: <http://sonoragraphics.com/software.html>.

I would like a recipe manager that did the following things:

1) Talks to recipesource.com an/or google, so if I need a recipe I
don't have, it finds one.

2) Will take an input of "This is what I have in my fridge/pantry"
and come up with a meal, or even better, a series of meals.

3) Will show a recipe in either "english" or proper measures, that
is, it will intelligently convert a metric recipe to cups and
teaspoons, with the note that this might yield less than optimal
results.

Trouble is, I'd be pretty unlikely to want to pay for it...

But, to be fair, I just use a google query and my wife pulls out the
dead-tree recipes, and then ends up using recipesource or google anyway.

I second Jim's comments on A Cook's Books. I loved Mangia, but as Adam noted, it is (most emphatically) no more. I've switched over to ACBK, and although it's different in many ways, I'm very satisfied with it. The author, Tony Cate,is incredibly responsive to user's quibbles (I can't really call them complaints) and questions, there's an active listserv, and I was able to import all of my Mangia-formatted recipes using a perl script -- I wish it could have been more direct, but ACBK does import a lot of "living" recipe formats, should you want to.

It has a "pantry" function, and a bunch of other features like integrated nutritional information, which I never use, but I recommend taking a look at it.

<http://www.3caam.com/products.html>

Chris Jones

Recipes! Ah yes... and the thousands lost when Master Cook wouldn't continue to support OS X!

Currently, I have in excess of 14,000 recipes on my Mac. Being a retired chef, I continue to develop and collect recipes. It is serous enough to me that I have paid the fees of all the available recipe management applications for the Mac and OS X. [Shameful that a person must pay the fee in order to fully explore an application...]

As much as I hate to say it, I still long for Master Cook Mac. However, I have settled into one application that comes the closest to being what I'd been used to and with the current version is almost as easy to work with. It is A Cook's Books. The developer is most responsive to the application's users and has never failed to very promptly, personally, reply to any issues I have contacted him with (What a nice change!). Also, there is a great users group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acooksbooks/ ) who is quick to lend advice (both software wise and cooking); the developer often posts to the group as well.

The feeling I get when reading posts regarding recipe applications and the users of it, is most users gain their recipes off the internet/web. This is especially an area A Cook's Books excels in, via the Services Menu!

Should there be any doubt regarding my recommendation for recipe management software... it is A Cook's Books! And hands down.

Check it out at (Three Cats And A Mac): http://3caam.com/products.html

On Dec 20, 2006, at 10:04 AM, Google Kreme wrote:

> On 19-Dec-2006, at 05:25, MichaelGibbs wrote:
>> Although certainly not a Mangia clone, the Recipe Box from Sonora
>> Graphics was inspired by Mangia and designed by a former Mangia
>> user. More information is available on the Sonora Graphics web
>> site: <http://sonoragraphics.com/software.html>.
>
> I would like a recipe manager that did the following things:
>
> 1) Talks to recipesource.com an/or google, so if I need a recipe I
> don't have, it finds one.

I'm not an advanced enough Filemaker user to know if it can or cannot
do this, but I do highly recommend the free Epicurious Dashboard
Widget from the Apple site. It searches all the Conde Nast magazines,
including Bon Appetit, Gourmet, House & Garden, Self, etc., going
back decades in their archives:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/food/epicuriouswidget.html

I'd be lost without it, and wish that FoodTV and Martha Stewart (yes,
I admit it, I'm almost as committed to Martha's recipes as I am to my
Mac)

Marilyn

There have already been several comments about it, but I have to chime in again for A Cook's Books. It's not Mangia, but it works very well and Tony does his best to add features requested by users. Another enthusiastic recommendation.

On 22-Dec-06, at 8:02 PM, Marilyn Matty wrote:
>
> I'm not an advanced enough Filemaker user to know if it can or cannot
> do this, but I do highly recommend the free Epicurious Dashboard
> Widget from the Apple site. It searches all the Conde Nast magazines,
> including Bon Appetit, Gourmet, House & Garden, Self, etc., going
> back decades in their archives:
>
> http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/food/epicuriouswidget.html

Marilyn, this was a *brilliant* tip! Thank you!
__________________________________

Joanne Cook (mailto:forests2ecologyaction.ca)

All,

I just wanted to let everyone know that Stephen's original request
sparked something in me. I was a long time Mangia user (in fact, we
keep an old 7100/80 around for two reasons: After Dark and Mangia) and
have been looking at many of these tool idly for some time thinking
that maybe, just maybe, we should get into the 21st century and move
up to one of them.

So, when I saw that initial email that started this thread I wrote to
Adam and asked if I could write a survey/comparison of the different
tools and he said OK. But I also loved Stephen's idea of using this
mailing list to become a kind of standing review/article in its own
right so rather than killing that idea by writing a more traditional
article, I want to follow the spirit of that original request and
involve the list in deciding exactly what I will cover in the article
and how I go about putting these tools through their paces.

As things stand now, I have all of them now and am preparing how I
will be reviewing them.

My thinking is the following:

1) My wife and I will perform the same tests. She's a long time Mac
user but is casual at best, novice in many ways so she'll be the "how
easy is it really to use" test. This will get around the fact that I
tend to find all of the hidden features in programs without thinking
about it and may think something is really easy to do when someone
else may be confounded by it.

2) I want to gather recipes from a few different sources: a
handwritten recipe from my wife's aunt who died 6 years ago at age 100
(in other words, a very old recipe), one from a foreign cookbook (uses
different measures that need to be converted), a few different
contemporary cook books/web sites (different styles) and maybe one
that's more in the Italian Grandmother category (where nothing is
specified, you add as much as will fit in your cupped palm and then
enough of that so it tastes right, etc.) The idea here is to see how
flexible the programs are at handling the many different kinds of
recipes we are bound to have in our collections. And how easy data
entry is in general.

3) Create shopping lists from each tool to see how they compare (and
how easy they are to use in the actual store). As an added bonus, I
want to see if any can handle the fact that I use 2-3 different stores
based on what I need. I go to Shaw's/Stop-n-Shop for the basics, Whole
Foods for much that's not generic, and local Italian markets in
Providence for more esoteric things. Can the programs handle that
division or is it only by category? And are the categories orderable?
One store I go to is Produce then bulk then butcher then dry goods
then dairy and another is a different order. Can I print a list that
let's me go sequentially based on which store I am visiting?

4) Cook from printed recpies and from my laptop screen to see how each
compare. Can I change the appearance of screen or printed recpes to
make it easier on myself?

5) Bonus: Can any of them import my old Mangia recipes (I know A
Cook's Books can with some external help, can any of the others?) I
certainly won't hold an inability to do this against any of the
programs.

6) There is no six.

7) I am covering all tools I have seen mentioned in this thread so
far. I am not covering any web-based solutions as I want to keep this
Mac-centric and focus on the freeware and shareware applications that
are available for it. Beyond what has been mentioned in this thread,
are there any other programs I should be looking at?

This is where my thinking has gotten me at the moment. If anyone has
anything else they would like to know about these programs or can
suggest for my testing, post it here (or drop me a private email if
you're shy :) and I'll make sure to give you a shout out in the
article if use your idea.

Thanks everyone!

-A

Your list of features to look for seems good. But, there are
probably a few more people than just me who are too fat, have
diabetes, high blood pressure etc etc.

Perhaps a nutritional calculator should be added to the list, and
perhaps some way to tag recipes that are OK for HBP or asthma or
whatever. That calculator would be helpful too for those of us who
just throw a bunch of stuff together ... and want to see how the
nutrition stands up.

On Dec 28, 2006, at 3:21 PM, Andy J. W. Affleck wrote:
> So, when I saw that initial email that started this thread I wrote to
> Adam and asked if I could write a survey/comparison of the different
> tools and he said OK. But I also loved Stephen's idea of using this
> mailing list to become a kind of standing review/article in its own
> right so rather than killing that idea by writing a more traditional
> article, I want to follow the spirit of that original request and
> involve the list in deciding exactly what I will cover in the article
> and how I go about putting these tools through their paces.

This is a wonderful idea, and I can't wait to see the article!

> 3) Create shopping lists from each tool to see how they compare (and
> how easy they are to use in the actual store). As an added bonus, I
> want to see if any can handle the fact that I use 2-3 different stores
> based on what I need. I go to Shaw's/Stop-n-Shop for the basics, Whole
> Foods for much that's not generic, and local Italian markets in
> Providence for more esoteric things. Can the programs handle that
> division or is it only by category? And are the categories orderable?
> One store I go to is Produce then bulk then butcher then dry goods
> then dairy and another is a different order. Can I print a list that
> let's me go sequentially based on which store I am visiting?

I recommended Filemaker Pro earlier in this thread, and though I'm
not an advanced user or have ever even tried the mobile version, I
have thought it would be handy to be able to import my recipe
database from my Mac to my phone. It might be interesting to include
in the article if you, or another list member, as successfully
implemented this.

Marilyn

am 04.01.2007 11:12 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talktidbits.com unter
tidbits-talktidbits.com:

> I recommended Filemaker Pro earlier in this thread, and though I'm
> not an advanced user or have ever even tried the mobile version, I
> have thought it would be handy to...

Well, I managed to get FileMaker databases onto my Palm m515 using JFile for
Palm. Everybody I asked, told me to keep off FileMaker Mobile as it is a can
of worms and doesn't function at all.

JFile is almost a "slim" version of FileMaker and integrates very well with
FileMaker 3 which I'm using. I have quite a few FileMaker databases on my
Palm now and it works like a charm. Changes are synced in either direction.

Udo

I love the epi widget, thanks! I wish it would access the "My Recipes" feature the same as searching the entire site, although it seems to quickly open the epicurious.com webpage pretty quickly.

I used to have a really cool recipe program, about 4 years ago, on my now-defunct Dell. It wasn't available for Macs at the time and now I can't recall the name - something like Recipe2000. The feature I liked was the calendar - it allowed you to organize a whole week's worth of meals, including mundane things like recurring kids' snacks and cereal for breakfasts, and it would generate a shopping list for the whole week with both the recipe ingredients and the mundane meals. Do any of the programs available for Macs do that?

I am a new mac user. I had a recipe program for windows I liked that was very easy. When you added a recipe from another source it let you decide which part was the title, ingredients or instructions before it added it. Do any of these programs that are recommended allow you to do that? I tried Connoisseur, but it automatically divided it up and it put some of the ingredients in the instructions and I could only move it one line at time, well, actually, each line had to moved separately by amount, then unit, then ingredient.

On Jan 13, 2007, at 2:37 PM, april wrote:

> I am a new mac user. I had a recipe program for windows I liked
> that was very easy. When you added a recipe from another source it
> let you decide which part was the title, ingredients or
> instructions before it added it. Do any of these programs that are
> recommended allow you to do that? I tried Connoisseur, but it
> automatically divided it up and it put some of the ingredients in
> the instructions and I could only move it one line at time, well,
> actually, each line had to moved separately by amount, then unit,
> then ingredient.

I set up separate fields in Filemaker Pro for title, ingredients and
method; you can copy, cut and paste between fields. I also set up
checkboxes for categories (vegetarian, vegan, kosher, cookies,
Italian, Indian, Thanksgiving, etc., etc.).

Marilyn

I'm very excited about my new MacBook, which should arrive next week. The only cloud in the sky is that I just discovered that The Living Cookbook is not available for Mac. The reasons I chose it: - can keep a pantry inventory - can generate shopping lists - can generate nutritional analysis of recipes I enter - can calculate Weight Watchers' Points for recipes I enter - has a menu planning feature

I'm going to write them and say I'd like a Mac version, but if anyone knows of a program out there that currently does this, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks also for undertaking a systematic review of recipe software for the Mac. I haven't been able to find one either.

On 2/15/07 10:46 AM, "elise325" <elise.judithgmail.com> wrote:

> I'm very excited about my new MacBook, which should arrive next week. The only
> cloud in the sky is that I just discovered that The Living Cookbook is not
> available for Mac.

You can always get Parallels and a copy of Windows, and run your cookbook
software under Windows.
--

Allen Watson . Writer/Webmaster [ p. 503 .281 .0250 m. 503 .916 .9411
e. watson.allencomcast.net
homepage.mac.com/allen_a_watson/

On 2/15/07 10:46 AM, "elise325" <elise.judithgmail.com> wrote:

> The Living Cookbook is not available for Mac. The reasons I chose it: - can
> keep a pantry inventory - can generate shopping lists - can generate
> nutritional analysis of recipes I enter - can calculate Weight Watchers'
> Points for recipes I enter - has a menu planning feature

Ever heard of "The Living Cookbook"?
--

Allen Watson . Writer/Webmaster [ p. 503 .281 .0250 m. 503 .916 .9411
e. watson.allencomcast.net
homepage.mac.com/allen_a_watson/

[Alert! Vendor shilling! -Andrew]

Cook'n is the #1 best-selling Recipe Software with over one million copies sold. I think it's great...of course, my opinion is a little bit biased!

And, you Mac users will like this: http://www.dvo.com/mac-software.html

Dan

<x-sigsep>

-- 

</x-sigsep>

Hey David,

Well I am about fed up with RecipeManager myself...I went to get a recipe that I was in the middle of making and just forgot the exact measurements so went to check it and the recipe is gone from the program. In fact, every recipe I added to the software has mysteriously disappeared.

So I am now shopping for a new program.

Mike

Just read the article reviewing the 10 options; Andy mentioned having trouble with the Mangia conversion. I worked through it converting to A Cook's Books back in April, and wrote up some tips based on my experience for their support list (a Yahoo group). In case those would be useful for other Mangia refugees, here's a link to that post. You may need to join the acooksbooks group to view; I forget if that's required, but the post is very long and I don't want to burden readers here with the entire thing if they're not interested.

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acooksbooks/message/8124>

- Todd