No, Im not talking about Cooking Mama (although I do love that game)
Im talking about cookbooks for the DS. When I was in Japan one of the
things I envied in the game shops was the sheer number of cookbooks
for DS. Walking down the aisles of the many electronic shops in
Akihabara here were dozens and dozens of them, sadly my total lack of
reading any Japanese prevented me from picking any of them up.
However when I was out shopping this weekend I saw Personal Trainer:
Cooking available for the DS and quickly snatched it up.

I LOVE THIS PROGRAM! There just wanted to get that out of the way
before I go any further. Those who know me know that aside from
playing games, one of my
favorite pass times is cooking.  With Personal Trainer:
Cooking, my love of the kitchen and my DS have finally come together
harmoniously.  This is seriously such an amazing program and
incredible for the $19 sticker price (by the way, I'm saying program
because this isn't a game so much as a computer application). Personal
Trainer: Cooking features over 240 recipes from all over the world all
with step by step instructions to help you create spectacular meals.
The best part of this program is the attention to little details that
they put into it. If you are making Spinach Namul and don't know how
to blanch spinach, in the middle of the recipe it will give you the
option to click on a mini guide to perfectly blanching spinach. There
are even videos for some preparation tips, like how to clean a trout
or perfectly dice garlic. Another nice touch is the kitchen timer
that will pop up in the middle of you cooking steps and it will be
automatically preset with the time needed for that recipe. You can
also adjust the number of servings to be either 1, 2, 4 or 6 and it
will automatically adjust the recipe accordingly.

Example of cooking video....look REAL people! Not cartoons!!

However, the greatest feature of all would have to be the voice
control option that lets you repeat a step, go back or move on to the
next without ever touching your DS (trust me chicken grease and a
touch screen don't mix). My biggest gripe with cook books is having
to constantly dry my hands so I can look up the next step. With
Personal Trainer: Cooking I can just say the word and it reads off the
steps too me along with photos to illustrate the task. This program is
such a great use of the DS as a system because it takes advantage of
its portability and the fact that it can sit upright, which makes it
perfect to sit on the counter next to you as you cook!

The step menu allows you to pick up where you left off or skip
ahead.

Searching on this program is also far better than any cook book
because aside from searching by region or ingredient you can get
really specific. To decide Monday night's dinner I looked up by
ingredient and calorie count (after eating heavy foods over the
holiday I wanted something light). We have a ton of cucumber so I put
that in and the result was a Chinese dish called Bang Bang Chicken
which features a spicy sesame sauce and cucumber slices. It was
delicious! Tonight I decided I want to cook some gorgeous salmon
steaks that we have in the fridge, so I found a nice French recipe for
Salmon with Green Sauce and a side of ratatouille to accompany it.
When you are looking at a recipe it displays the ingredients and
allows you to check off ones that you are missing and it creates a
shopping list to take with you to the store! But, lets say you're at
the store and you don't know what parsley looks like, well it has
photos of all the ingredients to help you along. Or what if you get
to the store and they are out of an ingredient? Many ingredients have
substitution suggestions like using unsweetened peanut butter if you
can't find sesame paste. Another nice feature is you can set the
program to exclude certain ingredients. So if you are like my friend
Becky and unfortunately unable to eat onions, with a click of a button
you can make sure no onion recipes ever grace your DS.

You can use the map to look around the world to find your next
meal! All the meals display a picture along with calories, time
needed to cook and a short description.

The only thing that Personal Trainer: Cooking doesn't have that I
would like is a meal planner where you could schedule out the recipes
you want to cook for certain days. If it had this feature, it would be
the most perfect program ever! I am able to somewhat simulate this by
adding a note to the recipes I want to use saying "Thursday night
dinner" and I can then filter the recipes by notes. Its not the
best solution but it works.

Another nice section is the Homemade Ingredients which teaches you
how to make basic stuff like pizza dough or Béchamel sauce.

Overall, what I like most about Personal Trainer: Cooking is that
they didn't half-ass the game. They couldve easily shat out a bunch
of recipes that you just tap through, but they didn't go that route.
All the little details and perks are what make this one step above
your average print cookbook. They really thought about everything
that someone would want or need in the kitchen, its perfect for
beginning cooks who dont even know how to flip a pancake and seasoned
chefs who can make a soufflé in 10 seconds. (Oh and
you boys who are thinking "pshaw why would I want a stupid
cooking program?" remember this, ladies love a man who can
cook.)
Hopefully this will inspire more cooking programs for the DS and
PSP, I would also love to see celebrity sponsored editions (ahem
Alton Brown's Cooking for DS please!). Apparently a program called
Whats Cooking? With Jamie Oliver did come out recently so I am now
on the hunt for a copy of that (although I've heard that one isn't
quite as good). Honestly I would buy just about any other DS
cookbook as long as its even half as good as Personal Trainer:
Cooking. If I were to score this program I would undoubtedly give it
an A!