Welcome to the Walkthrough!
Using Personal Trainer: Cooking in the kitchen to prepare delicious meals is easy, simple, and fun. Check out the example walkthrough below to get a taste of what it can do for you!
Selecting a Recipe
The first, and arguably most important step of preparing a meal, is deciding what to cook. Many important factors such as ingredients, time, calorie count, and cooking method are all concerns anyone may have when deciding what to make. Personal Trainer: Cooking lets you put all of these factors up against its entire list of recipes, so you can make an easy meal choice. For this example, let's choose Lasagna... Specifically because it's a medium skill level dish, and you can make it in 30 minutes. Or maybe because it's an Itallian dish? You can easily select meals by country via the world map.
Examine the Process
Now that we've picked a recipe, the fun can begin! At this point, you're at the cooking overview screen. From here, you can select to view required ingredients, view preparation steps, learn tips & advice, read notes (you may have written prior) and finally, begin cooking.
- View Ingredients - This section opens up an interactive list of ingredients you'll need for this specific dish. For most dishes, you can adjust the number of servings you'd like to make, and the measurments will adjust automatically. Put a check mark next to the ingredients you don't have, and they'll populate in to a simple grocery list you can bring to the store with you!
- View Steps - Clicking here brings you to an overview screen. Here you can quickly see what's involved in making this meal from scratch, including utensils and cooking method.
- Cook - When you're done with the overview, it's time to get cooking! Don't worry, at any point you can come back to this screen for review.
Preparing a Masterpiece
The next step is the Preparations menu. The DS Chef will take you through step-by-step instructions which are spoken out loud as well as written onscreen. For more difficult steps, an onscreen video will play, showing in detail the best way to proceed. You can also interact with the software by speaking directly to the DS Chef. Hands covered with tomato sauce? Saying words like "Continue!," "Repeat!," and "Last Step!" will let you navigate easily, and completely hands-free. Even if you need more info on a specific step, just say, "More Details!" and the DS Chef will come to the rescue with more detailed information.
Now You're Cooking
This is where you'll actually be bringing the meal to life, and Personal Trainer: Cooking will continue providing you with all the info you'll need to know until your food is finished. Same rules as above apply—the DS Chef is with you every step of the way. This recipe for Lasagna needs to be baked in the oven for 12 minutes. And to make things even easier, Personal Trainer: Cooking has a built in timer! As you load the meal into the oven, just say, "Show Timer!" The recommended time will appear onscreen as a digital clock. Say, "Start Timing!" and the timer will start. You'll be alerted when the clock reaches 0:00. Until then, you should go take a break—you deserve it!
Who's Ready To Eat?
When you're done cooking, the meal will be ready to eat! If that isn't reward enough, you'll get a celebration screen, and an option to stamp your in-game calendar. From now on, every first time you use Personal Trainer: Cooking you'll be able to see that you made Lasagna on this specific date, or any other dish on any other day. Mark the date with different colored stamps to remind yourself of what you thought of it, or who in your household cooked it!
And that's it—simple enough for even the most novice cooks to create tasty meals that are fun to make, and deep enough for an expert to find it handy in the kitchen!
