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30 of 30 found the following review helpful:
It's actually Personal Trainer Cooking 2.0Mar 29, 2010
By Rob America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking is actually the follow up to the original Personal Trainer Cooking for the DS rebranded with the America's Test Kitchen branding - which is nice addition, as they're not a bad brand at all.
I picked up a copy at Gamestop today and I'm quite happy with it.
It really is like the Betty Crocker all-American cookbook type follow up to Personal Trainer Cooking with all those classic recipes that everyone wanted in the first one.
Plus it has lots of neat little features that make it usable by a household. Essentially everyone can create a profile and select which recipes they'd like to try - and that info can be generated by groups of people/profiles. Also it tracks when meals are made, when holidays are coming, suggests recipes for events, holidays, etc..
Looking at recipe #162 as we speak, Homemade Taco Shells - it's "sendable" If I had a friend over tonight with another DS I could send it to her DS as a standalone app and she could make the taco shells while I focus on the actual taco stuffing recipe on my DS. Lots of side dishes or compliment dishes are setup like this so you can assign them to other people with their own DS's.
Also, you can have different profile cook together alternating tasks in the process - and for kids you can limits if they're allowed to use knives or heat or fire. Nice touch.
Also when you start up you get an update page, like a message board, which tells you what's been going on, so you know if other people in your household have been cooking or shopping or anything.
Very happy with this little purchase.
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Let's Get Cooking...Literally.Apr 05, 2010
By Steve J. Gonnella I have to say, when I first picked this up, I was sort of hoping it was something like Cooking Mama where you virtually made the food in the game. But I was pleasantly surprised that it was much more elaborate than CM. In this one you actually have to make the dishes, which is fine by me, and it gives you a daily calender with holidays and suggestions as to what you should prepare for that holiday.
I love making the profiles. It allows to you choose a color, face icon, birthday (for the calendar), whether or not you can operate a stove and use a knife; it also has you record your name so that when it assigns jobs for the cooking team, the DS can actually CALL YOUR NAME when it is time for you to do your job.
When you first get started, though, you should read the little cooking manual, which gives you information about ingredients included in the dishes, how to use kitchen utensils, helpful tips, points, and videos demonstrating things such as 'how to slice an onion' or, 'how to properly heat your pan'.
You can even make a grocery list by simply selecting the meal you want to prepare and then look at the ingredients, placing a red check mark on the things you need to buy to make it. This automatically adds it to your grocery list, which you can take with you and check off what you buy as you shop. That was extremely convenient...
Overall, I was very pleased with this game. With 'AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN' marked on the front of the package, you cannot go wrong with the delicious, excellent and fairly simple recipes.
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Great for the novice cook or all around foodie!Apr 06, 2010
By T. Alexander About a year or so back I bought Personal trainer. Its an electronic cookbook for the dslite. I was amazed by all the dishes in it and with all of its features I was able to make so very memorable dinners.
Now comes America's Test Kitchen: Let's get cooking. One of the complaints I read in reviews was how Personal Trainer had many foreign dishes. (Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.) This sequel responses by giving us some of the most common American recipes. All of the original features are here that made the first book so good. Now with new features like a calender that lets you add birthdays and special events. And reminds you upon turning on the the DSi how many days to the event. You can exclude ingredients for food allergies, Assign task for family members, send some of the recipes to other DSi. Review your dishes, place notes, mark on the calender what you've done or tell it to place recipes that your interested in doing in your try it folder. Set a date or just mark it as soon. and video clips show you step by step how to do the more dificult task.
My only complaint is that they removed the serving program. It was on Personal trainer and allowed you to reduce or increase the number of servings and it calculated the change in measurements based on those changes. My only guess is that with all they added they had to sacrifice that option. I miss it but not enough to reduce my rating.
This program is great for the bachelor, college student on their own or for parents to give their children to teach self reliance with learning how to cook a meal. With supervision of course. a great gift for any of those reason or if you just want to buy a cook book.
This is a great idea. I hope that famous chefs decide to produce a DSi version of their cook books. Bobby flay, Emeril, or Rachel Ray would be great for this format.
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
Make classic meals while learning new cooking techniquesAug 28, 2010
By Athonia Cappelli America's Test Kitchen (ATK) is a show on PBS saturday afternoons that has practical tips & tricks for cooking enthusiasts. ATK is second only to Alton Brown's "Good Eats" (Food network) in terms of providing practical information you can actually use in the kitchen. This title for DS picks up where the TV show leaves off. The software guides you interactively through picking a recipe and date on which to make it, through grocery shopping and on to the step by step food preparation in the cocina. There is one small problems with one of the features but it's not a show-stopper. Get this edu-game for your DS and you'll have everyone in your family singing your praise: "Hey Cappelli, that's a great a Putanesca!"
You're probably already saying: "Pish posh, Athonia. *I* don't need this game; I've got my beloved cookbooks! When the recipe I crave is not in one of my cookbooks, I have the Internets from where I print reams of paper". To that I say, the Nintendo DS format is superior to any cookbook or Interwebs for a few simple reasons: 1. cookbooks don't stand up very well and are rather hard to read laying flat 2. cookbooks and printed recipes get filthy with oils, hot pepper sauce and wine 2. cookbooks catch fire. The Nintendo DS solves this problem by being somewhat less flamable. ;-)
Indeed, a DS running ATK's Let's get Cooking is a god send. The only downside is that the voice recognition software interprets kitchen sounds: knives chopping, pots banging, stoves lighting and fire extinguishers dowsing blazes, as commands. It was a great idea to allow the chef to control the DS by voice since hands can be preoccupied with cooking utensils and food. This part doesn't work in most situations though. Kitchens are too noisy for this feature. Luckily, the DS does let you turn off the voice commands which will solve the excessive chatter and navigation issue that the ATK is cursed with out of the box.
Like the show, ATK for DS is not even remotely vegan oriented. It does, however, allow you to specify which foods you don't eat and marks recipes with an X if it has an ingredient in your "do not eat" list. It would not be that hard to make adaptations to their recipes to make it work for most dietary restrictions, IMHO.
Another useful feature is the search. If you have some items in your garden or refrigerator that you'd like to use but don't have an idea for what to do with them, simply search for that ingredient in ATK for DS. It will show you a list of recipes that have your food(s). It even lets you schedule a meal for an upcoming calendar day if you're not ready to cook immediately. Also, if you pull up a recipe and you are missing ingredients for it, just check the box next to the items. Bring the Nintendo DS to the market and it will show you a list of every ingredient you've checked across any number of recipes.
All in all, Let's get Cooking is a great product and I'm really glad to have it. I hope that America's Test Kitchen comes out with another title explaining 300 more new recipes. I'd wait in line to buy it! Now if only Alton Brown would do a DS version of Good Eats.
Recipes I've cooked so far, and adapted vegan, include Drunken Beans Oven Fries Grilled Sausage, Peppers & Onions Creamy Buttermilk Coleslaw Macaroni Salad Hummus Roasted Red Bell Peppers Gazpacho (with farmer's market heirloom tomatos) Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry Bruschetta with Tomatoes and Basil Pasta Caprese Stir Fried Sesame Broccoli (worth getting this "game" if only for this one recipe) Tomato Sauce Mexican Rice Asian Cucumber Salad Curried Rice Salad Spaghetti with Puttanesca Sauce Reuben Sandwich Black Bean Soup Cold Sesame Noodles Fresh Basil Vinaigrette ...and many more.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Great For Someone Who Has Never Cooked BeforeJan 06, 2011
By Amanda Riggle Overall, this game is filled with novice recipes, great for young teens wanting to learn to cook or others who are not very experienced in the kitchen. I would not recommend this game for anyone who is a mid-level to advance cook, however.
based on 17 reviews
( 17 customer reviews )
