kiwi
I'm the primary cook in my house, and I've loved cooking for as long as I can remember. My wife usually gets the groceries. Between us there are two full-time jobs, two kids and a dog, and all of them need to eat every single night — and even for someone who loves it, getting dinner on the table without a plan is hard. Not once. Every week, forever.
Years ago I had an idea: an app for busy families, and for anyone standing in front of the fridge with no idea what to cook. It would do the planning, write the list, and make the cooking easier. I kept not building it.
Then, a year ago, a house sale fell apart on us at the last minute, with both kids starting school a few days later. We spent six weeks in an Airbnb — wife, two kids and the dog — before we were able to move into a new home we hadn't planned on living in. It was a dark stretch, and I decided to use it: if life was going to change, I'd change it toward something better for my family. That's when I started building Kiwi.
I built it alone, as a passionate home cook and a self-proclaimed technologist — a career spent in high tech, and a lifetime spent at the stove. Every recipe in Kiwi has to pass one test: would a home cook actually make it? A thirty-minute Tuesday and a Sunday on the smoker both qualify. Every feature is something my own kitchen needed.
If you're wondering how a young boy found his passion for cooking: when I was about ten, some family friends told me that girls like guys who can cook. I took it very seriously. Turns out I just love it.
Kiwi is the app I wanted on a weeknight — meals the people at my table will eat, a clear cook plan, the ingredients I need, and a kitchen that isn't stressful. I hope it does the same for yours.