Using the program can be a bit of a hassle but once you have found out about the intricacies, it becomes a very useful asset to have available. Chef comes with a large store of recipes and you are able to add your favorites to it, too. You work the program by entering CHEF at the CP/M prompt. The next thing you will see is a short menu of things you can do. Here's what you see: A: contains recipe files. This is disk 1. Select from these options: a. Search recipes for keyword b. Search recipes for ingredient c. Search recipes for title word d. Search another disk e. Exit You guessed it! This program searches the recipes for certain characteristics. Once you find out about keywords, this program will find the one you are looking for. If you have two zucchinis in your fridge and don't know what to do with them, you search for zucchini (ingredient) and if you have any recipes like that, you will be given your choice. The same goes for title word. You say you like lasagna? You can find it here with the search mode. One thing you can't do within this program is add more recipes or edit existing recipes. You will need WordStar in "N" mode for this or some other equivalent word processor. You can do this and the program will work just fine if you follow the standard format. Look at others in the files for hints about the format. Another item you need to know is the nature of the result of the search. If the recipes you want are found, you will be told: "Try one of these recipes:" and you will get a list of recipe titles with numbers assigned in ascending numerical order. Following that will be an instruction which says "Or you may:" and a menu of options listed in alphabetical order such as "a. add more recipes to this list" followed by the question, "Which option do you want?" I tried and tried to get this to work right but could not get it to display a recipe until I realized that the option indicated could either be alpha OR numerical. You are to enter EITHER a recipe number OR a function item. If you enter a recipe number, then you start to see the wonders of this program. You will be treated to a terse review of the recipe, such as, "A meal in itself", followed by the recipe title. The recipe follows using standard terminology as shown here: c = cup t = teaspoon gal = gallon tsp = teaspoon gals = gallons approx = approximately # = pound env = envelope oz = ounce hi-pro = high protein lb = pound in. = inch lbs = pounds " = inch pt = pint opt = optional qt = quart pkg = package T = tablespoon sq = square tbsp = tablespoon sqs = squares The really neat part of this program consists of the ability to rescale the recipes for quantity of an ingredient you have on hand, or for the quantity of people for whom you are cooking this favorite dish. You can either save the newly reproportioned recipe to disk or just print it out for your current use. THIS is why we stick to standard measurement designations which the program recognizes. When entering a new recipe, be sure to adhere to the standard method of measurement such as capital "T" for tablespoon, and small "t" for teaspoon. this program recognizes these abbreviations, not others. You need to know about key words. Here are a good supply of them. Of course, you could add your own, in which case, you should add to this list so you will remember what you've added. Menu 1 - Holiday Menu 6 - WOK Menu 2 - Middle Eastern Menu 7 - Vegetarian Menu 3 - Barbecue Menu 8 - Seafood Menu 4 - Brunch Menu 9 - Nutrition Menu 5 - Company Coming Menu 10- Poultry Appetizer Ethnic Potluck Baked goods Freezes well Salad Beverage Gift Soup Bread Hi-Pro Spicy Breakfest Holiday Eggs Brunch Kids Cheese Casserole Leftovers Vegetables Cookies Lunch Meat Dessert Main dish Meatless Easy Make ahead Snacks Entertain Outdoor General Information: On adding recipes to this program: If you use WordStar, use "N" non-document mode. Also, be cautious about line length. In "N" mode, WordStar does not wrap sentences and you must before you reach 80 character line length which you can tell by the "+" in the right column. If the plus mark appears, this will mess up printing. By the way, I configure my Okidata 92 for 12 cpi before printing out recipes. In this way, there is no wrap happening at the printer which will mess up the page length. If you use a different word processor, keep your line length at 80 characters or less, and set up your printer for 12 cpi before printing. 1. Maximum ingredients allowed = 40 2. Maximum text allowed = 3000 characters (a) Call up location with [c/x=], look at "length" for total. 3. Key Words must be in UPPERCASE. 4. Recipe files on disk must be named [RECIPES.1, RECIPES.2, etc.] 5. Layout of recipes: a. Initial Comment (optional) b. Title. c. Ingredients. d. Instructions. e. Serves or Makes (optional) f. KEY WORDS (optional), capitals required. g. Separator (five hyphens, left justify) 6. Here is a list of units that are not to be divided. egg scallion mushroom tortilla rattlesnake strawberry As you can see, this list consists of items that do not divide easily. For example, 1/4 of an egg is a mess, or dividing a rattlesnake in half may may it angry. Use this as a guide for like items which may be contained in recipes which you may add. BON APPETIT!