A cookbook, written in Python

This module (and associated pycook.py utility) implement a simple cookbook creation tool. The objective is to make it as simple and ergonomic to use as possible from the perspective of someone familiar with Markdown or reStructuredText. The recipes are represented as a directory tree of YAML files which you can manage with your favorite version-control tool. PyCook turns these YAML files into one of a few output formats:

• A searchable HTML cookbook (built using Sphinx)
• A PDF cookbook (uses LaTeX)
• A PDF of 4x6 recipe cards printable on Avery 5389 templates

Recipe format

Recipes are described using an ergonomic YAML-based format. The primary objective of this format is to be as easily for a human to read/write as possible while still retaining enough semantic information that PyCook can massage it into the different output formats. As an example, this is the YAML file for a pretty good pancake recipe:

name: Jason's Café Pancakes
from: Jason Ekstrand
url: https://github.com/jekstrand/pycook

ingredients:
  - 1 [cup] All-purpose flour
  - 1 [cup] Whole wheat flour
  - 1/2 [cup] Sugar
  - 1 [tsp] Baking powder
  - 1 [tsp] Salt
  - 2 Eggs
  - 2 3/4 [cups] Milk
  - 1/4 [cup] Butter, melted

instructions:
  - Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl.
  - In a separate bowl, beat eggs and combine with milk and melted butter.
  - Mix wet ingredients into dry until just combined.
  - Heat a 10 [in] skillet on medium heat until hot.
  - Add a small amount of oil and then 1 [cup] of pancake mixture.
  - Cook for about 1 1/2 [min] on each side or until brown.

One thing you should immediately notice is that all units are specified in square brackets like [cups]. This allows PyCook to know when a quantity is being used and it will automatically ensure that the unit abbreviations used in the output are consistently abbreviated and have proper plurals. It also helps when it comes to laying out the PDF and recipe cards.

Cookbook structure

The general structure of a PyCook cookbook is that it's a directory of YAML files that looks something like this:

my_cookbook
├── cookbook.yaml
├── breakfast
│   ├── index.yaml
│   └── cafe-pancakes.yaml
...

The cookbook.yaml file at the root of the tree is the over-all meta-data file for your cookbook. It contains some very basic information like this:

# cookbook.yaml
title: Ekstrand Cookbook
author: Jason Ekstrand

In each directory that you want to be a cookbook chapter, place an index.yaml file containing information about that chapter:

# breakfast/index.yaml
title: Breakfast

And that's it! Throw in some recipes, check it into Git, and you have a version-controlled cookbook.

Running PyCook

Assuming you have a project setup as described above, generating the cookbook is simple. To get a PDF of your cookbook, run

pycook.py pdf path/to/cookbook.yaml path/to/output.pdf

To get an HTML cookbook, run

pycook.py html path/to/cookbook.yaml path/to/html/output/dir