Expert’s Rating
Our Verdict
As recipe collection moves out of the wag box and into the computer , there has emerged a little cell of Mac program designed to avail you find , categorize , share , show , and cook your food for thought . SousChef1.2 is a summary program with an iTunes - RSS feed sensibility that can help you get your repast off to a good starting .
Recipe programs cater to dissimilar type of cooks : Some are looking for relief of use in importing and export recipe from their favorite internet site ; others are pertain with having a mixture of signification and export alternative available to view and share recipe while at friends ’ homes ; still others want to record every detail down to the grocery store aisle where ingredients are available . The programme I ’ve seen recently vary according to how much detail the user need , and how much customization and automation they require .
SousChef is somewhere in the middle . It ’s not super automated , nor does it have an abundance of specialized surgical incision . However , it ’s bare , friendly , promiscuous on the eyes , and offers some appealing and practical capabilities .
Sous Chef’s interface is pleasing and easy to understand but it still has some bugs.
Interface
SousChef opens to unveil a pleasant user interface , and if you ’re familiar with Apple apps such as iTunes and Address Book , you ’ll at once respond to its visual clue . Importing formula is intuitive , and lick the same path for all sources , such as Web situation or text . A recipe importer lets you imitate and glue an entire filing cabinet into an import template . From there , an innovational environment lets you select and tag text for sections like fixings , Directions , Notes , Time , Yield , Category , and more . position images could n’t be easier : Just drag and drop an image from a Web site or your hard driving force into the formula guide ’s picture well . you may also designate the metric organisation for component measurement , which is a huge toilet facility for anyone who does n’t populate in the U.S.
The program corroborate textbook , fertile textbook , and text - based .pdf formats for both importation and export ( and , to boot , .doc format for importation ) . The only reflex , one - click import , ironically , is for competitor MacGourmet ( ) .
SousChef has additional keen features . In the Preferences battery-acid , you could delegate universal element substitutes . For example , if you always employ margarine rather of butter , or soybean milk instead of cow Milk River , you’re able to make those commutation in the prefs . After that , anytime those ingredients appear in a formula , the alternate ingredient are available to choose . However , this feature did not always forge , either because the quantity was not specified or there was a variation in the fixings such as 2 % milk instead of just milk . Of course , you’re able to always edit the relief into the recipe manually .
You can automatically create a shopping list from any recipe and then check off the items you already have.
SousChef gives you an graceful path to create grocery lists . you’re able to take a recipe and then create a grocery list from it . you’re able to then access that listing from the sidebar . Checkboxes next to each point let you hold off ingredients you already have and it ’s easy to add more point to the shopping list , even if they ’re not part of a recipe .
you’re able to scale the recipe , exchange them to full screen viewing , and have your data processor read the commission back to you while you ’re wangle .
From the cloud
SousChef ’s marquee feature is the swarm . Using the political program ’s search locomotive engine , you’re able to type in a full term like Tofu or Sweet Potatoes and , from the SousChef Web site , all the recipes with those ingredients will come flowing into the interface for you to view , just as if you had the recipe in your database . And , you’re able to easy import any of these recipe into your own local database . The company sound out there are some 81,000 substance abuser get recipe as I spell this , and likely more by the time you read this . you may search recipes according to ingredient , category , cuisine , and recipe name . Better still , you could sort within the results to get , for good example , only five - principal , vegetarian recipe . This is the immediate user formula import option I ’ve see to it of several formula programs I ’ve looked at latterly .
The hunting locomotive engine does not use Boolean operator , so that you ca n’t say Sweet Potatoes Not Chicken and then eradicate all the chicken dishes . But of course , you only spell the recipes you want to utilise into your own library .
Each ingredient also has a pull down menu that you could use to sort out it . you could mention that you always have a peculiar factor or that you need to put it on a shopping tilt ; you could substitute an ingredient for something else or exchange its output . Or you may see other recipe that apply this ingredient . While there ’s no built - in wine and beverage leaning , you may easily make one . It ’s sluttish to eastward - mail , photographic print , or post your recipe on a blog , too . The program lets you use iChat Theatre to partake in recipe .
Small glitches
There are a few things that do n’t run as expected . When I prove to edit a recipe , it present me an alert message says “ Multiple Validation Errors pass ” and there ’s no manner to figure out what that means . And while the documentation says you’re able to import recipes from formula Web sites via the Services menu , that feature does not work .
There were small anomalies in prove to surmount recipes . In changing the figure of servings for exemplar , 3/4ths of a cupful became 6/4ths or else of a cupful and a half . Not wrong , but hard to visualize and not rottenly elegant . In plus , the scales are comparative rather than absolute ( you’re able to double , three-fold , and quadruple a recipe or halve it ) , but , in this version , you ca n’t revert to the original values .
SousChef 1.2 is pleasurable and easy to learn for people looking for a unsubdivided style to collect and share their recipes and cook and workshop . The import characteristic is fun , and import recipes from the swarm presents lots of opportunities for variety . However , the version of the program I prove was too batty and some of the feature did not mold exactly as advertize . The developer is actively working on fixes for some of the problems quote here . If all of the features exploit flawlessly , SousChef would be right up there with the best of the recipe apps .
Our 186 - page Mac Gems Superguide is a veritable greatest hits of Mac Gems . It ’s usable as a PDF download , PDF on candle - ROM , or as a printed Quran . Learn more about the Mac Gems Superguide .
[ Jackie Dove is Macworld ’s older review editor . ]
