Geek-2-Live in the Kitchen: Macgourmet Creates a Powerful Recipe Database
Written: Sep 12 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use, powerful and feature-packed
Cons: Often crashes after text import.
The Bottom Line: If you like to cook and gather recipes, this software is amazing.
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| amykhar's Full Review: Advenio MacGourmet 2 |
I am relatively new to the OS X world - I’ve been using a Macbook Pro for about a year now. So, I’m probably getting all bubbly and happy about features long-term OS X users take for granted. But, I am totally in love with Macgourmet.
Macgourmet bills itself as the iTunes for recipes. And, if you use iTunes, you’ll quickly understand why. Like iTunes, Macgourmet organizes my recipe files in a database and allows me to group them in the equivalent of ‘playlists’. It even has smart lists, which can group my recipes by criteria that I choose.
I’m not normally one to store my data on my computer. I love to wipe my hard drive clean every few months and start from scratch with just my most critical applications. I keep my web bookmarks, source code, images and music on external hard drives or servers. So, until now, my ‘recipe database’ was using google to search for a recipe I had seen or wanted to try. I’ve never really bothered building up a collection of favorites before. So, I’m quite surprised by how much I love Macgourmet.
For me, there are two killer features. The first is that Macgourmet can generate shopping lists from my recipes. If I plan out my menu for the week, I can drag each recipe to the shopping list, and it automatically parses out the ingredients for each recipe. It’s even smart enough to combine amounts of similar ingredients. For example, if I am making beef stew and bacon leek and potato soup, Macgourmet combines the potatoes I need for both recipes into one entry in the shopping list. Once the list is generated, I can easily remove ingredients I don’t need to buy. When the list is complete, I can print it in large, easy to read print, or I can email it to myself and access it from my iPhone. As I build my database, this will greatly simplify my meal planning for the week.
The second killer feature makes use of something veteran OS X users probably take for granted - services. Macgourmet hooks into Safari and allows me to find recipes on the web and quickly import them into the database. The procedure is simple. I select the text of the recipe, and then choose the Macgourmet service for ‘create text clipping’. When the clipping is ready, I open it, and Macgourmet allows me to drag the ingredients and directions into the appropriate sections for a recipe. I can even drag a picture of the prepared recipe from Safari into Macgourmet. I have been having a blast importing all of my favorite Food Network recipes.
Macgourmet also provides a free recipe swap forum where users can exchange recipes. The forum is a bit of a pain to register for because the site administrator seems especially spam phobic, but there are many good recipes available for download. From my experience, recipes are not visible for download if you use Firefox. I was able to download them easily with Safari though.
The developers of this application put some thought into their work. There is a special ‘Chef view’ for printing recipes. This view generates large-print recipes that are easy for me to read while I’m working in the kitchen. Even as nearsighted as I am, I can put the printout on the counter and easily see the ingredients and steps
Smart lists, are a joy. For example, I can generate a smart list to pull up all of my recipes that use peanut butter if I bought 12 jars of it on sale. I can create one to pull out all of my appetizer recipes that use cheese too.
Just like in iTunes, Macgourmet allows me to rate recipes and to track ones I’ve prepared before. This makes it easy to find favorites or to delete duds. I can track the source of a recipe too, which allows me to quickly find a favorite Rachel Ray recipe or my mother’s recipe for crescent rolls.
I don’t use all the features Macgourmet has to offer. If I wanted to, it would allow me to share my recipes on the web. It would allow me to import recipes from MasterCook or MealMaster. It would allow me to store wine notes or other notes of interest. For now, I am content to save my recipes, generate shopping lists and create recipes from web pages.
Unfortunately, Macgourmet is not totally perfect. It frequently crashes right after it imports a web clipping. But, it’s never lost my data when it crashed. And, as I noted before, signing up for the recipe sharing forum is a bit tricky because of the anti-spam measures. Be prepared to jump through a few hoops.
Surprisingly, Macgourmet costs only $24.95. I would have been willing to pay as much as $50. I am having a lot of fun compiling recipes that I can share with my children as they grow up get more interested in cooking. It’s sort of nice to think that I’m using my computer to save a little piece of myself for my kids to refer to in years to come.
Recommended:
Yes
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amykhar
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Member: Amy
Location: USA
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