Shop'NCook 4 - or how I went from total chaos in my own kitchen to helping thousands worldwide plan and cook tasty meals and make ends meet.

Hi, I am Mathilde Rufenacht, the author of Shop'NCook software.

Let me tell you how Shop'NCook started.

I used to have absolutely no clue about cooking.

After the birth of my first daughter, as eating out was not an option anymore, I was completely overwhelmed by the grocery shopping and cooking.

I started writing Shop'NCook as simple checklist software to help me put together a shopping list and send it to my husband, who would then buy the supplies on his way back from work. Eventually I added simple recipe support.

The interface was clunky and it was time-consuming to add a recipe. I dreamt of a system that could make shopping lists from recipes without any user input, but realized that the software needed more knowledge to become powerful - in particular a comprehensive database of ingredients.

It took me many months to put together this database. At that time, I was expecting my second daughter and was sick with nausea during the whole pregnancy. Just the thought of food would make it worse. It is in this state that I sifted through more than 20,000 ingredients, every minute of it feeling sick!

By the time my second daughter was finally born, I had a program that could recognize ingredients in recipes automatically and analyze their nutritional content. I kept improving it over the next few years following user feedbacks, adding little by little:

• a meal planner
• recipe and menu costing
• synchronization between several computers

The gift that backfired

About one year ago, as I was getting ready to publish a new version of Shop'NCook with the synchronization functions, something happened that caused me to rewrite a large part of my software and wait one more year before releasing it.

Here is what happened: I proudly gave a copy of my new French version of Shop'NCook to a cousin of my mom who has diabetes, a smart 80 year old at ease with computers, to help her plan her meals - but she found it too hard to make sense of it by herself.

It made me look at Shop'NCook with new eyes and realized she was right... So I rewrote its entire interface to make its features easily accessible and self-explanatory. I asked then my 80 year old mom to test it - and improved it some more until I was satisfied that somebody with minimum computer experience could use it.

I am getting now incredible feedbacks and support messages by users almost everyday, how Shop'NCook makes their life easier by helping them in their grocery shopping, meal planning, balance their diets... or run their businesses.

Myself I don't know how I would have survived without Shop'NCook after the birth of my twins three years ago. It allowed me to cook in batch and always have something ready in the freezer that I could give my children even when I was so exhausted that I didn't know anymore what I was doing.

Cooking without stress

Using Shop'NCook is...

Here are some of the things that Shop'NCook will help you do:

• Transform effortlessly your drawers full of recipe clips into a searchable cookbook with nutritional content at your fingertips.
• Never be short again of recipe ideas. Shop'NCook gives you instantaneous access to thousand of recipes - and lets you import tens of thousand more if you want, - and find the recipe you need in seconds with its ultra-fast search. Delight your family with new tasty recipes everyday!
• Plan your meals for a week or more in just a few minutes and create with a click of the mouse an aisle-ordered shopping list based on your meal plan that will take you through the store in half the time.
• Avoid food waste and save money by getting exactly the supplies you need.
• Enjoy cooking in a relaxed atmosphere by knowing in advance what to cook and be confident you have all the supplies.
• Buy in bulk without guesswork and cut down your grocery bills by planning your meals for weeks or months in advance.
• Adapt easily your meals to your diet with Shop'NCook nutritional tools and ingredient substitution feature.
• Change effortlessly the number of servings of your recipes and menus.
• Share your recipes with your friends or access them on the go on the iPhone or iPad by uploading them to Shop'NCook's Direct Access database.
• Store recipes from your travels in French, Italian and German - Shop'NCook will even translate the ingredients for you.

Shop'NCook is also PC and Mac compatible.

New in this release

• Advanced search: The new search functions lets you search for a recipe on all your cookbooks, per text, ingredient, title or category. Your recipes are indexed so that the software can search thousands of recipes almost instantaneously.
• Shop'NCook learns as you use it: Shop'NCook remembers the ingredients you use so that it recognizes them in recipes afterwards. The more you use it, the faster it will become to add new recipes.
• Nutrition: Shop'NCook gives you now the nutritional breakdown per ingredient of your recipes and your menus. It is easy to add the nutritional information for new ingredients with the import function from the USDA nutrient database. The supported nutrients include now trans fat, glutamic acid and choline.
• Multilingual: Shop'NCook supports also recipes in German, French and Italian.
• Synchronization: The synchronization feature (Menu and Pro editions) allows you now to share your recipes among several computers. It will hopefully give you soon access to your recipes on the go on Shop'NCook's iPhone/iPad application, as soon as I have the time to finish writing it. The synchronization is still in testing phase as I haven't found yet a stable server solution. It will be eventually offered on a subscription basis to cover the costs of the server.
• Supermarkets: The new supermarket feature in the Menu and Pro editions allows you to make aisle-ordered shopping lists for several stores. You can also customize it so that it gives you the exact article name and count you have to purchase.
• Costing: In the Pro edition, you can now easily import your supplier product and price information. Shop'NCook Pro can also automatically select the products for your shopping lists that will give you the lowest grocery bill.

Only during the launch period, I include also the following bonus cookbooks:

A Homemade Christmas (a $9.95 value)

Pumpkin Pies & More (a $9.95 value)

Deliciously Decadent Cheesecakes (a $11.95 value)

The Appetizer Collection (a $11.97 value)

Blue Ribbon Recipes (a $14.97 value)

600 Recipes for Chili Lovers (a $14.97 value)

Here is the deal: You can purchase the edition of Shop'NCook of your choice:

• Shop'NCook Home from $34.95
• Shop'NCook Menu from $49.95
• Shop'NCook Pro from $99.95

Most professional users buy the Pro edition as this is the only one with costing function. Most home users choose the Menu edition. The Home edition does not include the meal planner nor the synchronization functions, but is good if you have limited meal planning needs. If you are not sure which edition you need, you can see a detailed comparison table here.

These are still the prices of 2007, before all the new additions to the software because I wanted to give everybody the opportunity to buy before I increase the prices. After the launch, I will increase greatly the price of the Pro edition. It is a difficult decision for me to do. I have tried to keep it affordable also for home users too, but it does more than software costing 5 times as much. If you have been considering to buy Shop'NCook Pro, I recommend you strongly to do it right now before I increase its price. I don't know yet what I will do for the Home and Menu editions after the launch.

What you get: When you purchase, you get:

• a license key for installation on one computer
• one year upgrade protection
• one year of synchronization service (free at the time being)
• the bonus cookbooks

You can also purchase a family license that allows you to install on up to 4 computers in your household (not allowed for business use). Optionally you can add a CD and user's manual to your purchase.

You don't take any risk. If you don't like the software, send me an e-mail within 30 days of purchase to get a full refund. In any case, you will be able to keep the bonus cookbooks - they are yours just to try the software (you will be able to continue using them with the free Reader software).

What you have to do: Click the link below to order. You will be able to select the edition you want, the number of licenses and if you want the CD and user's manual. If you want to install on several computers, make sure to get one license per computer, or a family pack add-on if it is for personal use.

If you purchase for a gift, make sure to specify the name of the gift recipient at the bottom of the purchase page as it is necessary for the creation of the license key. You can also write a gift message that will be joined to the CD if you select the CD option.

Within minutes of ordering, you will get an e-mail with your registration information, software download instructions and the bonus cookbooks installation instructions. If you have ordered the CD, you will receive it usually within a week or less.

Act now while you think about it. Click the link below to order:

Upgrade: If you have purchased Shop'NCook in the past, click instead here to upgrade. You can get also great deals during the launch period to upgrade to a higher version. Make sure you check all your options.