1
1. What is this F.A.Q. for?
3
Gourmet is intended to be as intuitive to use as possible. If
4
you find something in gourmet counterintuitive, confusing, or
5
hard-to-use, I'll consider it a bug and try my best to fix it.
7
Although Gourmet is intended to be intuitive to use, it is not always
8
so. Rather than write a complete manual, I've put together a brief
9
list of pointers in the form of this F.A.Q., trying to focus on those
10
elements of Gourmet that are not as transparent to the user.
14
2.a Where can I get some recipes for Gourmet?
16
Gourmet can easily import mealmaster and mastercook files. There are
17
large archives of these files available on the web -- search for the
18
kind of recipes you're interested in an "mealmaster" or "mastercook",
19
and you should find them.
21
Gourmet can also import recipes from websites. A very few websites
22
have support for automated import. In most cases, Gourmet will pop up
23
a window asking you to identify the title, source, ingredients,
24
etc. from the text of the recipe on the webpage. Then Gourmet will ask
25
if you want to choose any images from the webpage to associate with
28
2.b. What is that funny dialog about "encoding" that comes up when I import?
30
There exist many different ways to "encode" the same characters. When
31
a recipe includes accented characters or symbols (like the degree
32
symbol), it is important that Gourmet choose the right encoding to
33
read the recipe, or all of these characters will come out wrong.
35
When Gourmet encounters a file with unusual characters, it limits the
36
possible encodings to as few choices as possible and then presents you
37
with a choice, showing you the file with different encodings. The
38
lines where the different encodings result in different characters are
39
highlighted yellow, so you can quickly scroll to them and see which
42
3. How do I do complicated searches?
44
Using the "Limit" button, you can combine any of searches Gourmet
45
offers. For example, you can first search for Category "Salad", then
46
press "Limit", and then search for Jícama, in order to find all Salads
49
Using "Advanced" searching (on by default), you can also use "or" to
50
search for e.g. something with a category that is category or
53
Gourmet also supports regular expression searching. If you know what
54
that is, you'll find it very useful. If you don't know what it is,
55
know that searches with punctuation in them may not work as expected
56
(not that there's much reason to search within a recipe for
61
4.a. How do I create a shopping list?
63
There are two ways: Click on the "Add to shopping list" button from a
64
recipe card, or, click on the "Add to shopping list" button with one
65
or more recipes selected in the recipe index view. You can also type
66
"C-L" from either view to add to the shopping list more quickly.
68
4.b. What is the "pantry" for?
70
The idea of the "pantry" list is to record ingredients that you do not
71
want to shop for. In my kitchen, for example, I almost never need to
72
buy any of the basic spices, or staples like flour, butter, sugar,
73
etc. So I put them in my pantry list.
75
The reason these are added to a list rather than simply deleted from
76
your shopping list is so that you can always see what ingredients a
77
recipe calls for -- for the rare cases when you've run out of a staple
78
that's usually in your pantry.
80
4.c. So how can I delete recipes from my shopping list?
82
Drag them to the pantry list. Or use the "remove from shopping list" button
83
on the toolbar. Or type "Control-D" while the item is selected. The idea of
84
the "pantry" is just a metaphor -- you should put anything you don't want on your
85
shopping list into the pantry list, regardless of whether you actually have those items.
87
4.d. So how can I move something from my pantry back onto my shopping list.
89
Drag the item from the pantry list to the shopping list. Or use the
90
button on the toolbar. Or type "Control-B" ("B" for Back) while the
93
5. Entering and Editing recipes
95
5.a. How do I edit recipes
97
When you create a recipe card, you open a window with multiple
98
tabs. The first "recipe card" tab displays the recipe and allows you
99
to multiply your recipe.
101
The other tabs are for editing different aspects of the recipe:
102
"Details" includes the title, image, category, cuisine, preparation
103
time, cooking time, etc. The other tabs are self-explanatory.
105
When you open a previously created recipe, you'll see an attractive
106
"Recipe Card" display. If you want to edit any part of this display,
107
click on the "Edit" button next to the relevant section. For example,
108
next to the "Ingredients" header, there's a "Edit ingredients" button
109
which will open the edit window on the ingredients tab.
111
5.b. There are two many fields; I don't care about X.
113
If you know that you never want to enter information about "Cuisine"
114
or "Preparation Time", you can remove the field from the "Details"
115
view to make recipe entry quicker for you.
117
To remove fields, open a recipe card, then select "Preferences" from
118
the "Edit" menu. You will then be able to hide the field you don't
121
5.c. What are ingredient "key"s?
123
Ingredient "keys" are the standardized name for an ingredient that
124
will go on your shopping list and, in future versions of gourmet, be
125
used to look up nutritional information.
127
An ingredient like "Tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped" should be
128
keyed as "tomato" or "tomato, red" -- whatever you want to appear on
131
Standardizing keys means your shopping list can properly combine
132
ingredients from various recipes, understanding that "Tomatoes, seeded
133
and finely chopped", "ripe tomatoes", and "3 tomatoes, in slices", are
134
all the same thing. If this doesn't matter to you, don't worry about
135
making your ingredient keys standard.
137
5.d. Is there a fast way to fix up ingredient keys?
139
Yes. The "Key Editor" under "Tools" allows you to browse and search
140
all the ingredient keys in your database. This way, you can search for
141
all instances of "pepper" and standardize "pepper", "pepper, black"
142
and "black pepper" to one key.
144
You can also see what recipe different keys are used in, so that if
145
you see something is obviously wrong, you can go correct it.
147
Finally, the Key Editor allows you to easily change amounts and units
148
as well, either for individual instances or en masse. Using the Key
149
Editor, you can easily change all instances of ts. to tsp., or you
150
could tell it that for water, you'd like to change all instances of 1
153
5.e. How do I convert units?
155
Just edit the unit by clicking on the "unit" cell in your ingredient
156
list. Gourmet will then offer you a choice between simply changing the
157
unit and converting the item.
159
If you select 1/2 cup milk, for example, and change "cup" to "g.",
160
Gourmet will ask you whether you want to convert it (121.69 grams) or
161
simply change the unit (1/2 g.). Although Gourmet does know the
162
density of milk (allowing it to calculate this example), it can't
163
always to weight-to-volume conversions!
165
Gourmet also includes a unit converter under the "Tools" menu to let
166
you do any conversions you like.
168
5.f. What if about OR ingredients - this ingredient OR that?
170
Gourmet doesn't yet support this, because I haven't figured out a way
171
to make it work easily from the interface. If you have an idea about
172
how entering "X or Y" should work, please submit a feature request.
174
In the mean time, you can create the basic functionality of "OR" by
175
making both of the ingredients you want to choose between
176
optional. When you go to add the recipe to a shopping list, you'll be
177
given an option of which items to add, and you can choose. This isn't
178
perfect of course, because it allows you to add both or neither
179
ingredient, which is not what the recipe calls for!
181
6. How do I save recipes in a menu?
183
A frequent request is to have gourmet support saving collections of
184
recipes as a menu or daily/weekly/monthly plan. I hope to implement
185
some formal support for this feature in the future -- if you have
186
ideas what it should look like, please submit a Feature Request at
189
In the mean time, Gourmet supports adding recipes as ingredients by
190
pressing on the "Add recipe as ingredient" button in the "Ingredients"
191
tab of a recipe card. Using this feature, you can create a menu by
192
creating a "New Recipe" and then adding as many recipes as
193
"ingredients" as you like.
195
7. Can I calculate nutritional information with Gourmet?
197
Yes! Gourmet includes a copy of the USDA nutritional database, which
198
has thousands of items. For now, Gourmet doesn't know about any
199
ingredients by default--unless you tell it about your ingredients,
200
Gourmet will always say it is "missing nutritional information" for
201
the items in your recipe. If you care about nutritional information,
202
click "Edit" and a new window will pop up and ask you to give it the
203
information it needs to calculate nutritional information, either
204
using the USDA database foods or entering nutritional information by
207
8. Can I do fancy printing with Gourmet?
209
Yes. Gourmet's PDF Export supports a number of fancy layout options,
210
including printing to recipe cards or printing to paper in a format
211
convenient for cutting out and pasting onto recipe cards (if your
212
printer can't handle printing directly onto a recipe card).
214
You can export PDF's by selecting "Export recipe" or "Export Recipes"
215
and then selecting "Portable Document Format (PDF)" as the type of
216
export. You will then get a screen with a number of options, including
217
page layout options that include a variety of index-card formats (as
218
well as printing in multiple columns, etc.).
220
Once you've exported a PDF, you can use your PDF viewer to print.
222
On windows, Adobe Acrobat is used for printing from Gourmet, so you'll
223
get all of these fancy options when you select "print" directly.
225
9. What if I have a good idea for how to improve Gourmet?
227
Please submit a feature request at the following website:
228
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=649655&group_id=108118&func=browse
230
10. What if I find a bug?
232
Please submit a bug report at the following website:
233
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=649652&group_id=108118&func=browse
235
11. What if I have a question not answered here?
237
Post your question in the Gourmet Help Forum here:
238
https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=371768
239
Or, if for some reason that won't work, feel free to e-mail me at:
240
Thomas_Hinkle@alumni.brown.edu
added
removed
FAQ
