Betty Crocker meets the computer age with the advent of this cooking software. There are 26 different cookbooks, each specializing in a specific type of cooking or food, such as vegetarian meals, quick and easy meals, breads, breakfast foods, and desserts, just to name a few. It's much more than an updated version of your mother's cookbook library contained in one easy-to-use program, however.

While it can't turn you into a chef if you're the type who burns water, it does have many extra features that can help inexperienced cooks with meal preparation. With a click or two of the mouse, use the "shopping list" feature to add the ingredients for a specific recipe to an automatically generated shopping list, or plan meals in advance and enter them in the program's calendar to create a months'-long menu, if needed.

Want to cook a recipe with what you have on hand, but don't want to go to the store for that missing ingredient? Use the "substitution" feature to find out what you can use instead by typing in the ingredient you're missing to come up with a list of appropriate alternates. It'll also give you nutritional information on a serving size of each prepared dish. You can even watch video clips of chefs demonstrating cooking tips for specific recipes if you need a little visual assistance.

The program also lets you customize recipes, import new ones from the web or your own computer into the program, and e-mail recipes to friends (or accept theirs for import), and gives you access to a community bulletin board online community.sierra.com/WebX?14@@.ee741bb, where you can swap tips and ask advice from other Master Cook users. The two websites associated with the program also have additional recipes available for Master Cook users to import into the program, in addition to those already included in the program's cookbooks. ~ Kim Olson, All Game Guide