Culinary Chronicles

Inspiration ✨

Writer's have the term writer's block when they are uninspired - but what about all us amateur cooks? Choosing what to make as a meal, everyday, three times a day, can get challenging! I, and many friends, find it difficult to come up with new meal ideas. To alleviate this issue, Culinary Chronicles was born. Culinary Chronicles aims to make food fun, by connecting friends of the present with major figures of the past (or present).

What it does 💻

Get inspired by the diets of you favorite figures, either from the past or present! When you don't know what to eat, or simply want to try something new, use Culinary Chronicles to develop a customized meal plan based on your chosen persona (e.g., Marie Antoinette). In addition, you can export your meal plan as a PDF and share it with friends so that everyone can be part of the challenge. Culinary Chronicles aims to connect people of the present and past through food, making meal inspiration

How I built it 🔨

• Front-end was built with React.js
• Back-end was built with Node.js and Express.js, using OpenAI API
• Postman was used for testing: https://www.postman.com/speeding-desert-805789/workspace/culinary-chronicles-treehacks-2024/collection/32897024-36ce58f4-874f-490d-a07a-6b147542f7af?action=share&creator=32897024

Challenges we ran into ⚠️

• I really wanted to use Bun for the backend but it was not nice to my windows machine :_)

Accomplishments that I'm proud of 🏆

• It was my first solo hackathon, so I am proud of being able to finish a full-stack MVP in the short timeframe provided. I was able to execute the core features I had in mind.
• Seamlessly integrating OpenAI API in the backend

What I learned 🏫

• How to elegantly integrate OpenAI API into the backend: * Used model gpt-3.5-turbo * How to optimally set max_tokens to make the API calls faster without compromising quality
• Even though I wasn't able to use Bun, I did spend a considerable amount of time trying to get it to work, and as such learned quite a bit about this JavaScript Toolkit. Will definitely be making projects with it in the future!

What's next for Culinary Chronicles 💭

• An option for the meal plan to be read to the user in the AI generated voice of the major figure they chose (if voice is available)
• Comprehensive recipes listed alongside the meal suggestions
• Ability to save meal plans and make recommendations based on past major figures chosen by the user

Built With

• express.js
• javascript
• node.js
• openaiapi
• react