there r stuff lik video cooking! i gues tht makes more sense than pics

True, but for every cooking show there are many many recipes in text form that could benefit from visualization... especially when done automatically. Plus videos are pretty linear; the recipe visualization will let you expand/contract detail and follow things at any pace. I mainly mentioned cooking shows because they are an example of how adding visuals really helps.

i don't know if i'm following.

i see a flash site which reads "2 cups of milk" from a text recipe and displays two glasses of milk. "half a tomato" would display a cartoon knife cutting a tomato in half. the instructions would line up the ingredients and mix them in a cartoony bowl then whip them together with a wooden spoon.

am i close, or merely rambling?

MCF i guess am lost! am far a i know ...video gives the best feel! correct me if am wrong! :)

cool idea but thinking about how to realize this is mind boggling.
I love the idea of movies on techniques - like how to make pie crusts (quite the art)

At least in the U.S., people hardly cook anymore. However ... you could develop a generic system to read and visualize any how-to manual or instruction booklet and "rent it out" over the web for people/companies to add their particular content, that would make a lot of sense businesswise (training cooks included!)

Sounds like a job for Edward Tufte!

fossiloflife, christopherritter, bcforrester: that's a good take, animating the process -- I was initially thinking something more browseable that you follow step-by-step or print out... but something watchable is interesting too. I am going to refine the idea (above) to include more usage examples.

stevesitv: I would think that the bountiful offering of cooking shows aimed at home viewers indicates that people cook more than not. But what you say about serving this content to professional chefs is interesting -- they could at least pay for well-refined visualizations (v.s. the first-pass automated pictograms, e.g. "blue-cheese burger 1.0").

USAGE: Selecting, Exploring, and Following

Recipe is selected from (1) existing archived recipe, searchable by title/ingredients/genre/etc, (2) link to existing, e.g. Food Network, recipe, (3) newly entered recipe -- typed or pasted-in. Recipes are broken down into ingredients and steps. Ingredients are parsed according to the biggest natural-language hack in the history of culinary coding. Steps are processed similarly. There is an interface for tweaking recipes which deals in well-formed primitives such that users may easily rearrange and correct ingredients or steps. This interface is where human-power is harnessed and stored in a database; the rest is automated. Ingredients are cross-referenced to commercial databases with information pertaining to nutrition, packaging, distributions, etc. Lots of opportunities here for recipe collections, recommendations, etc.

With a recipe selected users may explore in several ways, including: pictogram view with nicely illustrated steps, shopping-list view with optimally organized items, drill-down views of any element (e.g. ingredient -> available packages, nutritional components, pictures, user comments about experiences with ingredient, etc.).

To follow a recipe, the user presses a "Go" button (substitute cute culinary reference here if desired) and the steps are displayed in sequence with acknowledgments by the user. The user may also opt to correct/modify/comment on steps. For users without food-proof computers or helpful assistants, printouts can split-up the steps into multiple sections/pages. The act of following a recipe adds entries to the database, including bits about how far they got or if they printed the recipe.

teleny: I would gladly accept the involvement of the illustrious Mr. Tufte on this.

I think this is a really good idea. Video is too hard to follow since your timing will always be different (I don't have someone to chop up all my ingredients into nice little bowls beforehand... ;] ). This would allow you to still print the recipes and keep it simple.

I remember also seeing recipes laid out in kind of a flowchart-type format (wasn't a flowchart, but it was really neat and easy to understand) - can't find the site anymore though - maybe somone else knows what I'm talking about and can point you in the right direction...

THis is COOL! =)

The consumer need exists, but where's the revenue?

Are you really adding much value to existing recipe sites and TV shows?

Do people have their PCs in their kitchen?

i would advise using a protective cover when cooking with your laptop! :D

How???

Saran wrap works in a pinch.

A Succulently good idea!

Some very equally nice idea about recipe and food keep on sprouting in Ch..i wonder if some seriously thought of collaborating and why not?

5 stars!

Thanks for the additional comments and votes! I don't have a revenue model yet, but to clarify the usage: I don't expect the laptop-in-the-kitchen model to be the norm. I think in most cases the output of the Recipe Visualizer will be printed page(s) which are easier to follow than standard recipes. Users might "rehearse", i.e. watch a play-through, of a recipe beforehand but in my experience cooking & clicking don't mix too well. There may be cases where friends are together and one will operate the computer (and likely, the bar) while the other(s) cook; mostly though I expect this tool to just produce easier to understand recipes and shopping lists.

I like your idea, I think it would be really nice for beginner cooks who don't know what some of the specific words really mean - like what is a dash and what is a pinch? I had a friend screw up a recipe b/c he thought a teaspoon was a tablespoon b/c it goes on the table.

Great Idea