I always enjoy watching things like the Food Network or cooking competitions such as Top Chef on Bravo. I see these people talking a foreign language (the language of cooking) and making the most interesting things, and I love when the judges rave about the flavor of something and act like it's revolutionary. I know how to microwave and that's about it. So, upon seeing an ad for Personal Trainer: Cooking, I thought perhaps this was my chance to dive into the world of cooking and actually try doing something I'd only marveled at before. It isn't a game and it isn't fun, but it's a great little application that has produced some pretty good food. A sense of accomplishment and something to fill my belly is all I need to appreciate this product.

Cooking With The DS

Personal Trainer: Cooking (PTC from here on) features around 250 recipes coming from all over the world, ranging from American to Spanish to French and Japanese. All the countries of the world aren't represented and some are better served than others. A country like Argentina might have only three or four recipes, but somewhere like France or Japan has a ton of them. When it comes to pulling dishes from the country of origin, however, the game does a great job at presenting national favorites.

Cooks can search through the recipes by country, scrolling across a globe and checking out the recipes one-by-one. Recipes are displayed as little pictures with facts posted, such as how long it takes to make the recipe and how many calories it has. You can also click on the pictures to change to a more detailed history of the dish, including why it's popular and some facts about it. You can also quickly click in to check the ingredients out, what you'll need, and what the steps are in order to see if it looks like something you think you'd like or be able to do. Besides manually scrolling through everything you can also group meals together through the game's search function, letting you look for only the chicken recipes, salads, etc. You can also search for specific ingredients like bacon.

Once you find a recipe you think you'd like to do, the first thing is to go to the store and buy your ingredients if you don't have them. You could just write them down on a piece of paper, but you can also take your DS with you, letting the game act like a checklist for your grocery shopping needs.

The game will then jump to the cooking portion of the application once you're ready to go, where it will first lead you through the preparation of the ingredients you'll need, such as telling you to peel the potatoes, chop the onion finely, and other such pre-cooking instructions. Of course, what if you don't know what it means to chop something finely? For some of the most common cooking terms that people might not know or need more clarification about, PTC will actually give you a little more detailed information, such as walking you through the steps on how to chop something finely.

As you advance through the recipe, PTC will constantly be reading the writing out to you and showing you pictures as to what you should be doing and what things should look like. If your hands are clean then you can use your stylus to skip through the instructions, but if they should be dirty with raw chicken you can use the voice function to give the game instructions, such as going back to the last step, continuing to the next, or going into more detail about something. The voice function works pretty well, but sometimes a loud noise registered and moved me on before I was ready, or either used a function I didn't want to at the time.

Food Around The World

PTC also features a few videos to help show some techniques off, but I felt they were both too short and didn't cover material for my liking. I wish PTC would've included more into the product and made them more dynamic, treating them like much like the cooks do on Food Network when they give similar tips and tricks.

For a cooking noob I found the instructions very easy to follow for the most part and made cooking relatively easy (though you'll still struggle if you attempt something hard before you're at that skill level). I created a steak with chimichurri sauce, bacon and potato soup, and some chili con carne that was my favorite of the bunch. The chimichurri steak failed, but I think that's because there was too much green pepper, and though I wasn't a huge fan of it, the other two people who ate the soup really enjoyed it (though wanted a little less broth and onion).

So what do you do to help yourself remember when a recipe was an utter failure and when it worked amazingly well? PTC features a note abbreviation system that lets you put your own notes in the game, giving yourself tips for the next time, such as remembering to reduce the stock quantity a little more. It's a nice function, but one that isn't too functional if you don't properly write your letters and numbers just like the game wants you to do so. I managed to spell words correctly (though some capital letters in the middle of words), but some letters came off completely wrong, such as PTC thinking my letter "T" was really an "X". The game also lets you place a stamp on your calendar, telling you when you made what, and keeping record so you know what you've made and haven't.

Personal Trainer: Cooking isn't fun and it isn't a game, but it's an excellent application for the Nintendo DS. It's given me a new appreciation for food and has helped me work towards being a better cook. The note function and voice recognition isn't great, but everything else works wonders. I especially enjoyed how PTC will let you choose between serving sizes, automatically readjusting all the ingredient quantities to reflect the new size. If there's a gamer in your life who enjoys cooking or you personally want to try your hand and making dishes you've only seen on TV before, Personal Trainer: Cooking is a great product and at a very inexpensive price too. So get out there and get cooking – find your new favorite dish.

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