SharpCooking

When I first designed Sharp Cooking, my goal was to provide smart features that other cooking apps lacked. Features like unit conversion (e.g., cups to grams) and recipe suggestions based on the ingredients you have at home were at the core of my vision. Over time, some of these features have been gradually implemented, but it’s been a challenging journey. Before large language models (LLMs) became widely accessible, using AI for these features was a significant challenge....

In my previous post, I announced that the Sharp Cooking Companion Chrome Extension was under review in the Chrome Web Store. I’m happy to say that it’s now available for download! The extension allows users to browse recipe websites normally in Chrome or Edge. When a recipe is desired, the user can click the extension icon and it will scrape the recipe data and generate a share code. Users can then paste or scan the share code in the app to import the recipe....

One of the coolest features in Sharp Cooking is its ability to import recipes from a website. See a recipe you like? Just paste the URL into Sharp Cooking, and voilà! The recipe is imported and ready to use. But have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes? And why sometimes it doesn’t work as expected? Unfortunately, the process isn’t always straightforward. The CORS Problem When I transitioned Sharp Cooking into a Progressive Web App (PWA)—blame Apple for that—a CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) issue emerged....

For a while, I’ve been using Python Azure Functions to power the Sharp Cooking Backend API. When I first created the API, the v2 programming model was still in preview and not fully ready. Now that it’s generally available, I finally upgraded. The v2 model reduces boilerplate code and adds features that weren’t previously possible—such as streaming responses, which is great for LLM models. Here’s a quick overview of the process and what changed....

I’m excited to announce the release of Sharp Cooking v1.11.0! This update brings several new features and improvements to enhance your cooking experience. 1. Set Recipe Language One of the new features allows you to set the language for individual recipes. For example, when my mom sends me one of her amazing recipes in Portuguese, I can now set the recipe language accordingly. This way, I can still use Sharp Cooking’s highlighting and parsing features effectively, even if the recipe is not in the same language as the app....