In the kitchen

Cook with your kids — not despite them.

A full-screen recipe player designed for the 6-year-old who wants to flip the pancakes. Kid-readable 28px type, smart auto-timers, screen wake-lock, and a "snap your result" moment that builds a family photo cookbook.

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Cook mode showing recipe step 1 of 4
The problem

Recipe apps are designed for soloists.

12pt body text, ad-cluttered ingredient lists, "see more" buttons, scrolly tutorials with photos that re-flow when you tap. None of it works when you're standing at the stove with flour-covered hands and a kid who can't read cursive.

Cozi has a recipe box. So does Paprika. Neither has anything resembling a kitchen-mode UX. We built one in three days because it kept coming up in user interviews.

"My six-year-old can read the steps if the text is big enough. He likes being trusted." — Beta tester.
How it works

Tap "Cook with kids." Hand them the phone.

The recipe takes over the screen. Big step number badge (80px circle), 24–28px step text with a 28rem max-width for line-length sanity. Horizontal swipe to advance. Tap Back/Next if swiping is fiddly.

The killer detail: we parse every step for time hints. "Roast for 45 minutes" → an auto-suggested 45:00 countdown appears with Start / Pause / Reset. Hit Start, and a WebAudio ding + soft vibration triggers when the time's up. The screen stays awake through the whole flow via the Screen Wake Lock API (with a graceful fallback for Safari).

  • Auto-timer parser handles "25 minutes", "2–3 minutes" (uses upper), "1 hour", "30 seconds" — 7 unit tests covering edge cases
  • Wake-lock means no more "swipe to unlock" with sticky fingers
  • Swipe gestures with a 60px threshold so accidental taps don't advance
  • "All done!" finish CTA in accent color — visible state change so kids feel the win
  • Cook count + favorites — recipes you cook 5+ times become ⭐ Favorites; 10+ become 🏆 House Classics
Recipe detail with cook-with-kids button
The photo cookbook

Snap your result. We build the family memory.

Every cook flow ends with a "snap your result" step. Skip or photograph — your call. Photos compress to ~140KB via canvas, get stored as base64 on the family doc (FIFO-capped at 24 photos per recipe so the doc can't grow unbounded), and surface on Sunday's weekly recap.

The compounding effect: by month three, you've got a personal cookbook of what your family actually likes. Better than any AI recommendation engine.

  • Rear-camera capture by default (`capture="environment"`)
  • Tap-to-remove with confirm dialog
  • Photo strip in the recipe detail — horizontal-scroll with date overlay
  • Surfaces on Sunday recap photo strip
The numbers

Built right, measured twice.

28px
Step text size (kid-readable)
7/7
Timer parser unit tests passing
~140KB
Avg compressed cooked photo

Related features

Plan your week

AI meal planning

One sentence → a whole week's meal grid. Then cook one tap at a time.
Sunday recap

Your week, narrated

Cooked photos surface on the weekly recap photo strip.
Claude Vision

Photo-to-events

The same AI engine that handles your flyers — different surface.

Make Tuesday-night chicken a family memory.

Our Life ships free, forever. Plus is $4.99/mo for unlimited AI meal planning. Cook mode is free for everyone.

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