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Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

parsnip.ai

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Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#301

Post by mizzao »

fatcat500 wrote: post #73

Love the idea, will definitely try it out. One bit of feedback I want to give is: when I'm answering questions on the iPhone app, there's a dialog that shoots up from the bottom... this is too much motion and I don't like it. Especially since there are multiple questions back-to-back, it feels a bit nauseating to see that dialog shoot up over and over. I think a quick fade in (or no transition at all) may be better s…

Thanks, we'll take a look. Do you remember what that dialog was specifically? I think the one you're referring to is only supposed to appear once, but if it's appearing multiple times we'll fix it.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#302

Post by mizzao »

a-dub wrote: post #180
abruzzi wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d much prefer a website—I don’t really download apps anymore, and an application for Mac seems overkill.

OT but same. jobs was right, it all belongs in the browser. apps pose too much of a privacy and security risk.

We actually built a previous version of the app as a PWA but the experience and performance was horrible. You can still try it here: https://beta.parsnip.ai/

Warning: this is not a great user experience; it's somewhat helpful for experienced cooks but useless for beginners and product adoption was terrible.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#303

Post by mizzao »

muzani wrote: post #280

I love this app! It's a little culturally/regionally specific (things like herbs and the types of tomatoes). But that's fine, hopefully this inspires people to do a similar app with thai curry, coconut milk, etc. One of the reasons I cook is because it's possible to taste food you'd never taste before. I can't get a good halal spaghetti bolognese. Sure, there are restaurants, but they tend to be way overpriced for so…

Thanks! We may get some Thai cuisine in Parsnip sooner than you think ;-)

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#304

Post by mizzao »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #61

I like the idea but it would be good if the recipes were tied to skills. It also doesn’t matter if you select a different level, you can still only pick the same things. It would also be good to select vegan or keto or gluten free to customize choices. The dishes seem very limited after starting, there’s nothing I don’t already know how to make. On the positive side I like that there’s no need to create an account to…

Right now we're mostly focused on beginners and don't have more advanced content / more international cuisines yet. But we have some baking and Ukrainian dishes landing soon!

Is that what you mean by recipes tied to skills, or something else?

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#305

Post by mizzao »

logophobia wrote: post #92

Tried a quiz. I'd be nice if there was more explanation about the things I missed. I get a question about naming ingredients. I get some wrong. Afterwards it might be nice to get an explanation about the missed items so I don't have to google myself. Even an in-app link to wikipedia would be enough. I also suspect that most things I got wrong were because of language differences, so translations might be nice as well…

Thanks for your suggestion! We definitely have an "in-app wiki" of sorts in our future plans.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#306

Post by mizzao »

tempe1h1 wrote: post #237

what I don't like about this (in general) is that it's part of the overruling ideology that will turn the internet from a place where you can look up how to make any recipe for free into a place where you have pay somebody a monthly fee to look up how much sugar per cup of flour goes in some dish (to put an example) of course, this is not exclusive to this project in particular, but it's a crummy trend that just keep…

I've thought about this and I think the choices here are:

- get everything for free, but it's all disorganized and someone else is selling your data to target you with ads - you can pay $45k for 3 months of cooking school - pay ~ $9.99 a month to both learn what you need and get help planning your weekly meals

In that case, is the third option all that bad? You can always go back to option 1 if you want.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#307

Post by mizzao »

tdhz77 wrote: post #148
mizzao wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of ways to skip directly to a recipe all over the Internet. Tell me more, what are you trying to find? Our recipes are actually pretty simple and not particularly special in any way. It's about the journey, not the destination ;-)

Ok, as a first time user that’s what I didn’t understand. My impatience grew, and you were saved by the fact I didn’t want to lose my progress so I powered through. Annoyed, but somewhat satisfactory end experience. I’ll have to try the recipe to see the full benefits.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll think about how to address that.

Did you realize that you could save your progress along the way and you didn't necessarily have to unlock the recipe?

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#308

Post by mizzao »

asiachick wrote: post #74

I found this very "white people in middle america" centric (sorry but I'm banging my brain to find a better way to describe it). My options as a beginner are 'greek salad', 'spaghetti & meatballs', 'cheeseburger', 'deli sandwich', 'avocado toast'. Even on advanced it only added 'scrambled eggs', and 'tomato bisque' To put it another way I found it very non-inclusive. Not that I expect one app to teach me all the worl…

I'm actually ethnically Chinese but I learned to cook Western cuisine before Chinese food (which you can see plenty of on our Discord: https://discord.gg/P4qpxsJ6A8)

We'll be adding more ethnic foods in soon, which is very exciting to me.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#309

Post by IanCal »

mizzao wrote: post #158
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #141

> Recipes are surprisingly deceptive. They seem like instructions you can follow, but a more apt analogy is that the recipe is an iceberg and beginner cooks are steaming along on the Titanic. Devil's advocate (and very serious home cook): Food Youtube solves all of these problems in various and (IMO) much more entertaining and informative ways. There's a plethora of content ranging from highly-technical restaurant in…

I appreciate the perspective, it's a common objection. Similar arguments I've heard are that in order to learn to cook, you need to do one of: - read a lot of cookbooks and understand them - go watch a ton of YouTube videos and triangulate the best way to do it - go get a job in a kitchen (essentially, apprentice) I learn the way you do and I totally get where you're coming from. But this only works for serious autod…

> go watch a ton of YouTube videos and triangulate the best way to do it

I don't understand this, you can watch one video of someone just cooking a thing you think sounds tasty.

Re: Show HN: Parsnip – Duolingo for Cooking

#310

Post by mizzao »

motbus3 wrote: post #177

question to OP. The company who owns Parsnip is Seed & Stone? the same who sells weed online?

Nope, we definitely don't sell weed.

Seed & Stone comes from the idea that a small, tiny seed can grow and grow into a plant with thick enough roots to be as strong as (or even split in two) a stone. So, a metaphor for starting from the fragility of a startup and transforming into a lasting organization.

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