It's the holiday season, and once again we provide an excellent gift and very, very special pricing. You can purchase a single copy for $20 - a Friends and Family 3 pack for $35 or a Friends and Family 5 pack for only $40!! The Chef has never lowered prices to this level but this year wants to help make it easier for you to provide a great gift at a great price. This is an opportunity for everyone to own their own copy of TheRecipeManager. This pricing will be in effect through January 15th, 2013.  (and don't forget, the desktop version of TRM does allow you to copy recipes back and forth from your desktop TRM to your iPad and iPhone.)

Really exciting news for us - TheRecipeManager is now available in Walmart! We're a couple of weeks late in letting everyone know this, but are absolutely delighted that Walmart have chosen to stock TheRecipeManager. Previously they had stocked the popular FoodNetwork Recipe Manager, so being the direct replacement for that makes us very proud.

The latest version is being sold in Walmart, which runs on Windows 7, Windows Vista, OS X 10.5, 10.6 & 10.7. This version also enables sharing of recipes, cookbooks and shopping lists to TheRecipeMgr running on iPad and iPhone.

IACP 2012 New Media Award

The image you can see on the left is a scan of a rather impressive looking certificate that recently turned up in our office. This is the certificate from the International Association of Culinary Professionals to acknowledge that the Informed Chef series of cookbook apps was a finalist in the inaugural outstanding use of new technology category award. The original now occupies a prominent place in our Kennewick office.

Kennewick couple manages culinary greatness

Last week the Tri-City Herald ran an article on the background and history of TheRecipeManager. The article covered how we got started on and developed products that are now used in over 46 countries. If you missed the article on our press page you can read more here.

TheRecipeManager Team
June 7, 2012

Chef Mike Kalanty, author of Bread Baking the Artisan Way has been baking and teaching bread baking for years. Baking is more than a career, it's a passion as well. Here is something he recently shared with us - it touches on the pleasures of passing your knowledge to others - and, sometimes, the greater pleasure of seeing that knowledge expand through others hands.

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It's funny how the random occurrences of life can suddenly all run together as if they were always meant to be. The way the different story lines of the well-written Seinfeld shows oddly intertwined in the final minutes of each episode.

Backstory from 1998-2000 and I'm working in Sao Paulo under contract with the Universidade Anhembi-Morumbi. The private university already had a stable of 4 dozen technical programs under its auspices. But they hungered for a 2-year hands-on program in gastronomy, their arching term that included sweet and savory cooking, breads, wine, and culinary history. As the program developer, I had the pleasure of working with some of the most wonderfully energetic, passionate, and fun-loving people I have ever met. One year and a half later, the program was up and running, students filled all semesters but the senior term by now.

Finding qualified chefs was easier than I should admit to. Training these skilled hands and palates in the art of teaching was harder than I can describe. Chef are creative, willful, and of course, always right. Mix in some Brazilian joie de vivre and it's quite the potent cocktail. The best way to teach them, I decided, would be for me to actually teach the classes at the start. My experience in teaching many different subjects, not just cooking, was my strong suit. Language skills were my sloughing cards. In typically Brazilian manner, everyone jumped right in and played along. Any and all contributions were welcome. The classes took shape one or two per day. The new chefs began to understand the art of transferring knowledge in a sort of sequential structure, and a student even told me my Portugues was tudo bem.

Jump to the Paris Cookbook Fair in 2010 in Paris, France. Where How To Bake Bread was honored as "Best Bread Book in the World" by Gourmand. In the days that followed I met some of the most important publishers across the globe. From 57 countries, all with different interests, customer demographics and literary styles. In the midst of the week-long activity, I found myself on more than one occasion seeking asylum with the representatives from Senac, the largest book publisher in Brazil. Why there? It was the simple joy of being Brazilian once again, if only for a short while. I was always offered espresso and a bottle of water. And always enjoyed warm, light conversation. IN English or sometimes the disjointed Portuguese which came back to me in waves.

We spoke of Sao Paulo and Rio. Of the bread classes I had once taught at UAM. I learned that some of the breads I had taught were now quite popular items in several fashionable bakeries in SP. One of my students had gone on to open an enterprise of pizzarias in the style that we now know as Napoletana. The Seinfeld story lines were colliding, washing back over one another and there was laughter, warmth and espresso.

When he was the Vice President of European Marketing for a well-known computer manufacturing company, my uncle taught me once that each nationality has its own style of doing business, so distinct from its neighbors as to be called a personality. That lesson rang true as I returned for more visits to my new Brazilian publisher friends. Before they could do any sort of serious business with me there needed to be that period of time wherein we establish trust for each other. And the pleasure of sharing our company. It was my uncle's casual remark a decade earlier that was now ringing true, unfolding before my eyes.

Just two years later, which in the international publishing arena I am to understand is just longer than the blink of an eye, Como Assar Paes graces bookshelves throughout Brazil.  As I look at it, I am not at all struck by the many changes in design, color and style that make How To Bake Bread appear so different from its Portuguese-language brother. A father always recognizes his son. After four years away at college. After the summer abroad in Europe. Under the superficial characteristics of a new identity, the true child's spirit and light always shine.

 I understand my startled mother's reaction when I returned from my first year in France with long hair, a tattoo and my Bohemian clothing. She could tell it was still her son under there. And under the beautiful and sleek stylings of Como Assar Paes, I recognize my little bread children and am pleased to see how they have grown.

Chef Mike Kalanty - Guest blogger and author of Bread Baking the Artisan Way - 25 Favorites from the baking classroom. Available now from the App Store.