Kitchen & Bar

On this phone

How to get around

The bar under the name is the map. Swipe it sideways if a destination sits off-screen. On Tonight, the button pinned to the bottom cooks the lead dish.

  1. Tonight — What you can cook first, plus drinks that fit the same shelf.

  2. This week — Five dinners from the shelf, urgent things cooked first.

  3. Shelf — Edit what you actually own.

  4. Written methods — Every dish and drink with a method somebody wrote out.

  5. The pantry — Start from one ingredient: what it does, and everything built on it.

  6. Out of it — What to use instead, judged by the job the missing thing was doing.

  7. Photo review — Review a demo shelf photo and confirm every item before adding it.

  8. Flavor Lab — Pairings with a track record: classic matches and the mixology behind them.

  9. Wild cards — Combinations with no tradition behind them, only shared aroma notes.

  10. Send to Occasion OS — Prepare confirmed shelf availability for Occasion OS.

  11. The field — The gap this layer owns.

Keep it on the home screen

  1. iPhone — tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
  2. Android — open the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens as Kitchen & Bar, not a browser tab. Inventory stays on this device.

Substitutions · 6 dishes here use it

Out of ginger beer

Heat and sweetness with real carbonation behind it, which is why it carries a drink that ginger ale only decorates. The spicy brands are a different ingredient from the mild ones.

Everything below is judged against that job. A swap that covers it is a swap; one that only looks similar is not.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

ginger ale plus a squeeze of lime and a slice of fresh ginger muddled

one for one

What it gets you
Ginger, sugar and bubbles with some of the heat added back.
What it costs you
The bite. Ginger ale is flavored soda and ginger beer is brewed, and the gap is the whole drink in a mule.

Instead · 2

soda water plus ginger syrup

three quarters ounce syrup per four ounces of soda

What it gets you
A controllable, fresher version, and it is what a good bar does anyway.
What it costs you
Making the syrup, which is ginger, sugar and water simmered for ten minutes.

Instead · 3

a spicy ginger kombucha

one for one

What it gets you
Bubbles, ginger and acid, with less sugar.
What it costs you
The sweetness, so the drink needs a bar spoon of syrup to stay balanced.

Where the swap will be tasted · 6

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes ginger beer a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Check what else is in the pan

The company ginger beer keeps in this library, counted off required ingredients. A swap that argues with the top two is the wrong swap, whatever a chart says.

What to make with ginger beerRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions