The book, kept whole
Every chapter, exactly as printed
The same nine chapters in the same order, the same notes, variations and family stories in their coloured boxes. Set in Garamond, on white, because that is what the book is.
Cook for two, or sixteen
Scale a recipe without doing the sums
Tap a multiplier, or say how many are coming. Every quantity scales into fractions you can measure — ¾ of a cup, not 0.75. Anything measured by feel stays as written: salt is still salt to taste. Switch to metric and it reads in grams, using the weights the book itself prints.
Cooking mode
One step at a time, screen stays on
Ingredients you can tick off, the step in large type, and a timer on any step that names one. The screen will not sleep while you cook, so you are not unlocking a phone with dough on your hands.
Whose recipe is whose
Browse by the family it came from
The book credits every recipe to the person it belongs to and groups them by branch of the family — Mum & Dad's, JD's, Richard's, Christianne's, Anthony's, Alec's and Steven's. So does the app.
Find it fast
Search by dish, cook or ingredient
Look for a recipe by name, by who makes it, or by something you already have in the fridge — searching pigeon peas finds every recipe that uses them.
Yours alone, and everyone's
Private notes
What you changed, what you would do differently. Nobody else can read them — not even an admin.
Substitutions
Cannot get pimentos where you live? Swap an ingredient and the recipe reads that way for you, and only you.
Ratings and comments
Say how it went. Everyone in the family sees it, which is rather the point of a shared cookbook.
“Why don’t we finally write down Mum’s recipes?”
The question that started all of this, at a Sunday lunch.