"Necessity is the mother of invention." Living in a shared house it often makes sense to eat together. It reduces washing up and stops people fighting over who gets to use the oven. Sharing the cooking is of course a fertile source of blazing rows, normally over whose turn it is. Rotas often quickly break down as everyone has lives to lead and it can quickly become impossible to track who has swapped nights with who. Also how do you account for those who do not eat in the house as often as others? Creating a fair system that is not too rigid or too petty can be a nightmare, ruining everyone's fun. The Chef-A-Matic was written is to solve this problem and version 1.0 has successfully kept the peace in a fractious household for 2 years and counting. The system simply records who cooks on what day and who they cook for. It awards a point each time you cook. Each time you eat it deducts a fraction. This fraction is simply one over the average attendance at meals. This means those who have cooked more than their share have a positive score and those who have cooked less have a negative score. The Chef-A-Matic therefore has the following advantages: --Clear representation of relative performance. --Gives confidence that the system is fair. --No need for strict rotas. --Whoever is available to cook can cook without fear that the effort will not be remembered. The Chef-A-Matic will also aid in keeping track of a cooking budget. It is possible to enter the amount spent by the chef on communal food for each meal. Using the totals page is then possible to see who spent what over a period.

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