REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Still using Google to find recipes online? KitchenPC has just launched a new search engine, geared explicitly towards cooks. KitchenPC crawls several of the major recipe sites and blogs across the Internet, indexing and cataloging each recipe automatically. Unlike a typical Internet search engine, which just indexes text, KitchenPC combines state-of-the-art recipe parsing techniques with an in-depth understanding of ingredients.
"We basically taught a computer how to look at a recipe from a culinary point of view," said Mike Christensen, founder and Chief Architect of KitchenPC. "It can figure out what the recipe would taste like; is it sweet, is it spicy? Can you eat it if you have a gluten allergy, would you eat it for dessert?"
The minds behind KitchenPC spent over two years compiling culinary data from multiple sources, and perfected these techniques using a collection of over half a million recipes on the Internet. The results? A parser that can understand over 99% of the ingredient usages it encounters, allowing rich metadata to be extracted from each recipe.
Since the site understands each recipe, it's able to help users find exactly what they're looking for. Searching is geared around the goals of a particular user. Typically, a user wants to locate recipes by keywords, meal, or ingredients the recipe does or does not contain. However, sometimes users already have ingredients on hand that they would like to use up. KitchenPC's "What Can I Make?" feature allows users to locate sets of recipes that efficiently use up ingredients and amounts, without requiring them to purchase any additional ingredients. The search interface also makes use of KitchenPC's ingredient parsing abilities, allowing users to express ingredients and amounts using natural language, such as "a pound of salmon" or "a dozen eggs."
Organize Your Recipes in One Place
Unlike a typical search engine, which spits out pages of results and expects the user to choose one, KitchenPC realizes that cooks often work with multiple recipes at once, and thus are interested in more than just one result. The site is optimized for this exact type of behavior. Users can check off each recipe they're interested in, and required ingredients are tallied in real time on the right. When users find recipes that catch their eye, these recipes can be grouped into menus. Menus allow users to not only save and organize their favorite recipes, similar to browser bookmarks, but also plan upcoming events. A menu could be created for a dinner party, a holiday, or simply a week of dinners. Menus can be printed in their entirety, complete with shopping list, making meal planning a snap.
Furthermore, KitchenPC offers many pre-built menus, designed by culinary professionals and nutritionists. These one-stop menus are themed around various categories such as healthy eating, holidays, seasonal ingredients, meals for one, and school lunches.
It's Simple To Get Started
KitchenPC hides its more advanced features, emphasizing simplicity for the average user. A basic search can be done with a single mouse click, while more advanced searches can be crafted through various checkboxes, sliders, and dropdowns. KitchenPC also recognizes when a user is having trouble, and offers assistance in the form of video demonstrations.
Product Availability
KitchenPC is available to the public now at www.kitchenpc.com, and is a free site. Questions or press inquiries should be directed to Email.
Contact:
Mike Christensen
Email