Get Cooking!

Advantages: See Review
Disadvantages: See Review

...I've never been a good cook but after my friend let me have a go on her Cooking Mama game I had to buy it for myself! Basically, you have to make a dish and at the end you get a grade from cooking mama, depending on how well you make the dish. The grades are Gold, Silver & Bronze with Gold being the best, Bronze the Worst. Cooking Mama is similar to games such as Wario Ware because of the fact you will be given a short amount of time to complete simple actions which can be anything in Cooking Mama such as slicing, mixing, pressing food , grating & even pouring! All these actions are done with the Stylus by swiping, tapping, or scribbling on the DS screen. When finishing the action, if you finish it perfectly, Cooking Mama will tell you, you are Very Good with a small gold badge underneath it , If you did okay she'll tell you, you did...

Julia95x 15.08.2008 · Read review
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Review of Cooking Mama (Nintendo DS)

Book with the Cook

Advantages: Good holiday company and very helpful
Disadvantages: None

...I must admit, I had never booked with Thomas Cook until a couple of years ago. Reason being is I had always been told they were expensive. It appears nowadays one holiday firm is the same as any other so it blows that theory clean out of the water. They are always very busy when I go in there so that too is a good sign! Recently I booked the holiday of a lifetime for my honeymoon. To make it a bit different, we wanted to spend a bit of time talking it through with someone, have it taylored for us and most of all, plan it properly. This is where the Thomas Cook service took over. We booked an appointment with their "long distance and faraway destination" specialist. This lady was very helpful and lead us off to a room downstairs to sit, drink coffee and deal with us on a 1 to 1 basis away from the masses. She was...

andycharger 23.02.2001 · Read review
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Review of Thomas Cook

Cooking Mama

Advantages: Fun & Addictive
Disadvantages: Repetitive For The Older Gamers

...Cooking Mama is a brilliant game for any age, however, it can get repetitive for the older gamers after a while. The game involves you making meals for Mama and she gives you a score out of 100 on how well you did, and depending on your score you can get a bronze, silver or gold medal. When you complete a meal it unlocks others for you to complete, and you can also combine different meals to make a new one. When I started to play this game I could not put it down because its so addictive to play. My favourite part of the game has definately got to be dicing and slicing different foods, however, I find peeling the shell off the boiled eggs really hard to do and still have yet to complete it! I don't know whether thats just me though that finds it so difficult!! Haha. Overall, it is very good value for money and I recommend this...

wondergirlxx 07.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Cooking Mama (Nintendo DS)

cooking mama!!

Advantages: Cooks 120 diffrent recipes.
Disadvantages: there is a timer and you have to do it before the time runs out!

...Cooking mama on ds is kind of easy to play, just follow the rules really. This game has not been out for that long i thought i would buy it cause it looks quite good i always play it so be warned it addictive, u can get this game from any game store and tecso and adsa and stores like that, Gamestation,Eplay and game there really good store you can buy this game from. This game is round about £20-£30 now and is worth the price, the game age around to play it is 3+ it is easy like i have said but some parts are difficult to do. ~How to cook~ theres is many diffrrent ways to cook such as cutting and you have to move the knife one side and it cuts. ~other ways to prepare to cook~ tenderizing= you hate to move it from side to side as quick as you can but the meat is really tough to cut, slicing...

Paigeoleary 11.12.2007 · Read review
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Review of Cooking Mama (Nintendo DS)

Cooking Mama Review

Advantages: Innovative use of the DS controls
Disadvantages: If you're not a fan of cooking, you probably won't like it

...Cooking Mama challenges players to use their stylus as a master kitchen tool to cook lots of real world dishes ranging from pepperoni pizza to cabbage meat rolls. The game makes good and inventive use of the DS stylus and microphone with players use the stylus to chop, slice, pan fry, knead, grate, mash and peel. You can even share recipes with your friends via the DS's WI-FI settings, this gives the game extra depth as you try to out-cook your friends! This a break from traditional games as there are no levels to complete, no boss to beat and no power ups to collect, instead you cook a wide variety of dishes hoping to get approval from Cooking Mama. Each stage is timed adding excitement and even frustration at times as you try to make the best dish possible. Some of the tasks you wonder why you have to do them as they're so simple...

Walter_Kovacs 14.12.2008 · Read review
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Review of Cooking Mama (Nintendo DS)

Cooking Mama DS - A Game For Everyone

Advantages: Bright - Vibrant and easy to play
Disadvantages: tedious, very tedious.

...I purchased Cooking Mama when it was released around Christmas time in 2006. It was not a game that I had asked for Christmas and while shopping it caught eye with its brightly designed and cartoon graphics on the front cover. I quickly picked up a copy and purchased it with delight. Cooking Mama is a cooking themed game that offers the player a chance to make 76 different recipes with an anime chef called cooking mama - Once you have made your recipes Cooking Mama will always rate how well you have done in creating different parts of the dish and how well you bring it all together. You go through the game doing different techniques such as pouring, chopping, slicing, frying, boiling, grating all the ingredients and cooking them correctly they give you t up and down. All is clearly shown to you and you can be shown various he...

Gemshaw 26.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Cooking Mama (Nintendo DS)

Brilliant cook book for beginners

Advantages: Easy to follow, great recipes, not too many ingredients.
Disadvantages: None

...I really enjoyed this book, I never saw the TV series, but the idea of one of the best chef's in the country creating a book to help anyone cook using normal ingredients rather than some of the more expensive ones really appealed to me, so I bought the book, at the time I got it for £8 in Tesco's. It actually retails for £25 but you can generally buy it for £12.50 in most high street retailers. The idea of the book is that Jamie was disillusioned with people buying ready meals or take aways and wants to empower the nation to be able to cook filling healthy meals for the whole family, to tackle obesity and the unhealthy lifestyles we face. He wants everybody to pass on a recipe to a friend or family member and therefore develop a network where everyone in the country can cook at least one or two meals really well. Published...

paulie1975 24.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours - Jamie Oliver

Great book for people with varying cooking skills

Advantages: excellent pictures and instructions
Disadvantages: bit pricy at face value

...Review of Jamie Oliver - Ministry of Food Jamie Oliver is a cooking phenomenon who usually gets on my nerves, especially in the sainsburys adverts where I feel patronised by his "eat for a fiver" range, like I want/need to spend £140 a month on cooking food. Does he know there is a credit crunch on? However, personal differences aside I received his 'Ministry of Food - Anyone can learn to cook in 24 hours' book for christmas and was plesantly surprised with it. The book is well produced with high quality pictures throughout and well thought out sections. ***KEY FEATURES The start of the book has Jamie's speel with hopes of getting you to teach a recipe to someone (pledge) and the usual pictures and info about kitchen equipment to use. Then it moves onto the various chapters which covers just about every range of needs...

dtait07 30.07.2009 · Read review
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Review of Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours - Jamie Oliver

Cooking but not as we know it

Advantages: a large variety of different activities/techniques to try
Disadvantages: A lack of apparent depth and ultimately not very fulfilling

...imagined that although on the surface the game seemed a simple set of mini cooking related games, that it would have more depth once I'd started playing it, but aside from earning extra recipes and new techniques to try, I didn't really feel like I was getting anything out of the game. My interest soon vanished and it ended up sitting on the shelf unplayed. Whilst it might be a good game for younger children as it might encourage to take an interest in food and cooking, which I firmly believe is a good thing, I'd find it hard to recommend this game to older people because there is a lack of obvious depth to it, giving it a rather short life span. Summary: If you want something that's fun involving food...head for your kitchen not for this game...

valve90210 16.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of Cooking Mama (Nintendo DS)

Some Good Home Cooking

Advantages: Very varied recipes; good photographs
Disadvantages: none

...Having lived for over twenty years in Cairo, where home cooking was the norm, on returning to the UK I gave in to the temptation to try out quite a few of the ready meals that I came across in the supermarkets. I was often short of time, and that was my excuse for not going overboard on home cooking. I did think it might be useful to have a recipe book just in case, and bought The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book for as little as one pound as part of an introductory offer when I joined a book club. It went up on the top shelf of the bookcase, and there it stayed until I thought I would check its advice on roasting the Christmas turkey. It was some time before the book was opened again. We always used to buy ready-made pizza bases and put our own toppings on. Then we wondered if perhaps we could make our own pizza dough as well. I...

denella 15.10.2006 · Read review
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Review of Good Housekeeping Cookery Book (The Cook's Classic Companion) - Good Housekeeping Institute