.KEYWORD recipes
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Kick it up a notch with Pocket Recipes
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Janine Sutphen has come up with a number of scenarios where having an easily referenced recipe catalogue on her Palm OS handheld would come in extremely handy. Fortunately, Pocket Express provides just the tool to do the job. She reviews Pocket Recipes, a cool solution whether you need help in planning your meals in advance or figuring out what to buy while in the grocery store.
.AUTHOR Janine Sutphen
Imagine the following scenarios. Who knows, maybe you don’t even have to imagine very hard because one of them perfectly describes your situation. Lots of people are struggling to balance their work and home lives.
Scenario 1: You work all day in a cube. You rarely have time to eat, let alone plan the dinner menu. Rushing home from work, you stop at the grocery store to pick up dinner essentials. What do you get?
Scenario 2: You and your spouse are both self-employed. You work at home all day on computers. As dinner approaches, panic sets in. Visions of delicacies dance before your eyes, stomachs growl, salivation begins. Unfortunately neither of you has a clue as to what you’re going to make for dinner. The reality is that a 5 p.m. trip to the grocery store is inevitable. What do you buy?
Scenario 3: Your 22 year old son has just started his first job. Fast food joints have been his fare for his college years. He now has the luxury of having grocery money, but he has a very limited cooking repertoire. What does he buy?
Scenario 4: You just received an email from a friend inviting you to a barbeque. It’s potluck. What do you bring?
Hark! Pocket Express comes to the rescue with their program, Pocket Recipes (at http://www.pocketexpress.com/Catalog/Product_Pages/recipes.html). Whether you need help in either planning your meals in advance or selecting a recipe and figuring out what to buy while your engine idles in the grocery store parking lot, Pocket Recipes is there to help you. It’s pictured in Figure A.
.FIG A Access recipes on your Palm OS handheld with Pocket Recipes.
Pocket Recipes is a breath of fresh air, a use of technology that has the potential to make your non-business life easier. It can be accessed either from your Palm OS PDA or your desktop. It’s easy. You can make changes either on your PDA or your desktop and then synchronize the devices. I decided to put Pocket Recipes to the test and dared it to make me laugh about shopping and dinner.
But let’s not jump the gun.
.H1 Software installation
Installation was quite easy, even for a computer geek. You know, we geeks have more problems with simple computer tasks than any other segment of the population! I installed the software on my computer and then synchronized my computer with my Visor. I was ready to go!
.H1 The databases
Pocket Recipes consists of six databases.
.H2 PxRecipes and MyPxRecipes
These PxRecipes and MyPxRecipes databases comprise the heart and soul of Pocket Recipes. PxRecipes is a database of either 750, 1500, or 2500 preloaded recipes. (By the way, you must try Bombay Chicken Wings!) You can choose how many recipes you want depending on the amount of available space you have on your PDA. MyPxRecipes is a database containing only your personal recipes. The databases are quite similar both in appearance and functionality.
Viewing either PxRecipes or MyPxRecipes from your computer screen, you will see that the screen is divided in half, as shown in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B On the desktop, your screen is divided in half.
The left side of the screen shows all the available recipes, and the right side of the screen shows a list of the ingredients, preparation time, servings, rating, notes, day, meal, and source for the selected recipe. The left side of the screen can be customized by selecting List Options from the Options menu. You can have up to five sorted columns. Personally, I found a single column listing recipes was the clearest and most usable. The day and meal fields are to plan menus by day of the week and meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner). All fields can be edited by selecting the edit button at the bottom the screen.
Recipes can be added to the databases by clicking on the new button and then either copying and pasting the recipe into a new recipe, typing the recipe into a new recipe, or importing an existing one as either a comma delimited or tab delimited file. In testing out this program I was successful at both copying a recipe from the Web and pasting the information into the appropriate fields and typing in a new recipe. I tried to import a comma-delimited recipe from Notepad. I was able to import the title and the ingredients for a recipe; however, in order to add any other field, I had to add a comma for each of the 25-ingredient fields I did not use. I found this feature cumbersome.
From either the PxRecipes or MyPxRecipes database, you can perform several actions, such as adding a new recipe, editing or deleting the current recipe, or cloning a recipe. Cloning allows you to make a copy of the recipe, make changes, and then save it with a different name. Since the databases are not relational, if you were to modify a recipe in the PxRecipes that you had already copied to MyPxRecipes, the change would not immediately be changed in MyPxRecipes. The change would occur on the next synchronization.
I find that one of the most useful features of the program is the ability to copy the ingredients of a selected recipe to PxShoppingList. I particularly liked the fact that it added the ingredients exactly. Thus, if a recipe called for a half cup yogurt, one of the items on the shopping list would be one half cup yogurt. This is useful when shopping because it lets me know that I can buy a small carton of yogurt rather than a large one. Information about the recipe, such as when it was created or modified, is also available.
The search function for Pocket Recipes is very powerful. There are several types of lookups that can be executed from either of the two recipe databases. The quickest and easiest is a search on the first letter of the title. That’s good if you happen to remember the exact title of the recipe (give me a break!). I found the advanced search more valuable. You reach the search function in one of three ways: from the keyboard, Control-F; from the file menu, by choosing search from the Record menu; or from the icon bar, by clicking on the binoculars icon. Using the Search dialog box, pictured in Figure B, you can search for specific words in specific fields.
.FIGPAIR B You can search for specific words in specific fields.
The advanced search dialog box allows you to search in up to three fields, as shown in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Advanced search allows you to search in up to three fields.
.H2 PxShoppingList
PxShoppingList is a list of items to be purchased. Each item is a separate record with five possible fields to be filled in:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Purchased: can be checked when the item is purchased;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Item: the name of the item;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Section: where in the store can you find the item;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Essential: notes an item that you purchase often;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Store types: drugstore, grocery, hardware, other, pet store, superstore, unfiled. At the bottom of the left-hand side of the screen, you can select the store types and only see those items associated with that particular store type.
.END_LIST
Items can be added to the shopping list in one of two ways: by clicking on the New button at the bottom of the screen or by selecting add to PxShoppingList from the Record menu. The left side of the screen can be customized in the same way as the recipe databases. Up to five columns can be created and each column can either be unsorted or sorted in ascending or descending order. As an item is purchased, click in the purchased box, and the item is moved to the end of the list, leaving only those items that still need to be purchased. Personally, I like this column. It is so frustrating to be standing in the middle of the grocery store with no pencil trying to figure out what items are still needed. Ugh!
There are also menu options that allow you to either delete the shopping list, delete purchased items, or delete non-essential items. This gives you flexibility.
.H2 PxConversions
Did you know that half a cup equals eight tablespoons? PxConversions contains a list of common conversions to use in recipe preparation. New conversions can be added by selecting New Record from the Record menu; Control-N on the keyboard; or by clicking the New button on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
.H2 PxNutritionInfo
This database lists nutritional information for specific ingredients. In addition to the serving size, the nutritional information includes facts such as percent of water, calories, protein, fat, saturated fat, unsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, and the vitamin content.
The amount of information is overwhelming, but I found it useful in selecting low carbohydrate snacks. This is a feature that could be critical to people with special medical needs, such as diabetics.
.H2 PxSubsandEquivs
One of my many downfalls is not checking to see which ingredients I have on hand prior to cooking. Therefore, while I’m already in the process of cooking, lo and behold, I realize that I have no lemon juice. A quick check shows me that I could use half a teaspoon vinegar instead of half a teaspoon lemon juice. Not bad. And Rob, my husband, never has to know that, once again, I did not plan ahead! For each item in the database, up to seven equivalents can be listed. When I make chili, I usually use canned beans. If a recipe calls for one and a half cups uncooked beans, I can substitute nine cups of canned beans. That’s good information! New substitutions and equivalents can be added as well.
.H1 Obstacles overcome
When I first started using Pocket Recipes, there were a few things that were problematic for me. First, I found cooking with my Palm OS handheld very awkward. The screen was not large enough, and I have a tendency to be messy. Your PDA doesn’t belong either by the stove or sink. I solved that problem by printing out the recipe in one of the several formats provided.
The second problem that I struggled with was that of how to use Pocket Recipes in conjunction with my many cookbooks. I wanted to have my favorite recipes in the database because it made shopping so much easier; however I didn’t want to duplicate efforts by writing in lengthy preparations. At first, I laboriously copied each recipe to the MyPxRecipes database. Then I found that all I had to do was copy the ingredients to the database and reference the cookbook and page number in the preparation field. When cooking, I could go directly to the specific cookbook and use their already printed instructions. I tested this and it works. Last night’s dinner was excellent!
.H1 My wish list
Pocket Recipes is a well conceived and executed application. However, that was not my initial reaction. Sheepishly, I must admit that I did what I usually do, which is to say that I jumped in and just used the program, ignoring all documentation. Therefore, in a last-ditch-attempt to find out if this program was in any way good, I decided to read the on-line help. Wow! Things that I had trouble with were explained; things that I couldn’t figure out how do were illustrated. I am humbled.
So what would I like to see? My husband is a Mac user. I’m a PC user. There’s no Mac version. However, the most glaring omission is that there is no ability to beam data from my PDA to another PDA. That makes sharing information difficult and cumbersome. I could really get into preparing menus and shopping lists and beaming them to Rob so that he could do the shopping. Now that’s cooperation.
Overall, Pocket Recipes is a winner; it’s an application that shines. I have high hopes for this application. I expect Pocket Recipes not only to save my marriage and allow me to become the "hostess with the mostest," but also to elevate my son to status of "chef extraordinaire" with his dates.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Pocket Recipes, visit http://www.pocketexpress.com/Catalog/Product_Pages/recipes.html
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Janine Sutphen is a Durham, NC based freelance writer. She can be reached at janine.sutphen@gte.net.
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