What it does
Family Table replaces the recipe box, the screenshots, and the three different apps nobody else in the house can open. Everyone in a kitchen sees the same cookbook, on whatever they happen to be holding.
Get recipes in
Photograph a handwritten card or a cookbook page and it becomes a real recipe, with ingredients and steps you can search. Paste a link, type it out, or bring a whole collection across from another app.
Cook from it
On a tablet, the method and that step’s ingredients sit side by side. On a phone, one step at a time with the amounts repeated in each step, so you never scroll back with your hands covered.
Timers, and a screen that stays on
A step that says twenty minutes offers to time it. The screen will not sleep while you are cooking.
Plan the week
Put a meal on a day, with its sides. Swap two nights and the whole dinner moves. Eating out does not lose the recipe — it asks where to put it instead.
One shopping list
Built from the plan and added up across recipes, so butter wanted by three of them is one line. Grouped by aisle, and sent to whoever is going — by message or email, from your own phone.
Leftovers, before they go off
Say what went in the fridge and what went in the freezer. Family Table works out how long it keeps, and can remind you the morning it needs eating.
Nutrition, honestly
An estimate per serving from the USDA food database, shown as a label with every ingredient it could and could not weigh. It fills in the fields WeightWatchers asks for — it never guesses at Points.
Notes, not scores
“Needs more garlic.” “Ben asks for this.” Notes are shared with the kitchen; favorites are yours alone. Nothing is rated out of five, and nothing is averaged.
Share a recipe
Send a link to anyone, in or out of the family. They open it without an account, and you can revoke it whenever you like.
On the home screen
Add it to a phone or tablet and it opens full screen like any other app. Recipes you have looked at still open when the kitchen wifi does not.
Roast for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 375°F.
For this step
3 lb whole chicken
2 tbsp butter, softened
Cook mode: one step at a time, with that step’s amounts beside it. The screen stays awake.
3 carrots
1 bunch parsley
5 plum tomatoes
1 lb butter
5 eggs
250 g all-purpose flour
The shopping list, built from the week’s plan and grouped by aisle. Five eggs, because two recipes wanted them.
Kitchens
A kitchen is the unit of privacy: its recipes, its plan, its shopping list, its members. Nothing crosses between kitchens unless somebody deliberately shares it.
More than one family
Several households can use Family Table side by side, each with its own cookbook. Nobody sees anybody else’s.
More than one kitchen each
You can belong to several and switch between them — the family cookbook, and the one a grown-up child keeps of their own.
An invitation does either
It brings someone into your kitchen, or sets them up with one of their own that they can share back.
Sharing between them
Send a recipe to another kitchen as a copy they own, or as a link that keeps up with your changes until they make it theirs.
Family Table is not a public service. It is a personal project, and every account exists because somebody was invited. There is no sign-up form, no advertising, no analytics, and nothing is sold or shared with anyone.
Signing in
Members sign in with Google, or by asking for a one-time link sent to their email address. There are no passwords. Google tells us only your email address, name and profile picture, and we ask for nothing else from your Google account.