Chitra's Kitchen List

Every morning it works out what to cook and how much, Chitra reads it once and fixes what is wrong, then the kitchen just follows it.

Who this is for

Chitra Deshpande runs a tiffin service out of a two-room kitchen in Kothrud, Pune. About 140 dabbas a day, two cooks, three delivery boys on scooters. At twenty to six she is soaking the dal and doing sums in her head, because the cooks walk in at six and the first thing they ask is how much rice. That is the moment this lands in.

How the job is done today

It lives in a spiral notebook and in Chitra's memory. Customers message her on WhatsApp when they are travelling, and she scrolls back through those chats at night to remember who is off. Eight dabbas go without onion and garlic, four are Jain, one man cannot take curd. She counts on her fingers, writes a number on the back page, and shouts the sabzi through the kitchen door. When she had jaundice last year her sister ran the kitchen for nine days and cooked too much every single morning, because none of it was written anywhere.

The screens, in order

1. Morning draft — Chitra opens this before six and reads the list the assistant has worked out, changing anything that is wrong before the kitchen ever sees it.
2. Today's list — The one screen the cook keeps open on a propped-up phone, saying what to make and how much of it, in kilos and in number of dabbas.
3. Customers — Holds who is on the list and what each one cannot eat, so nobody has to remember that Sawant sir takes no curd.
4. Away and extra — Where Chitra records that someone is in their village till Monday or wants two dabbas on Saturday, in ten seconds while the message is still open on her phone.
5. Past days — Shows what was cooked and how much on the last few weeks of mornings, so a new person can see the normal shape of a day without asking anyone.

What it keeps track of

• Customers — name, phone number, area, how many dabbas a day, what they cannot eat, veg or Jain or no onion garlic, which days they take
• Away and extra — who, from which day to which day, or extra dabbas on which day, and a line saying why
• The day's list — which day, which dishes, how many dabbas in total, how much of each dish, who checked it and at what time
• Dishes — dish name, how much of it goes into one dabba, whether it has onion garlic, whether it is fine for Jain

The one decision that matters

The real fork is what happens on a morning Chitra does not open her phone. One way, the list stays locked until she taps approve, so nothing wrong ever reaches the kitchen. The other way, it unlocks by itself at six with a plain line at the top saying Chitra has not checked this yet, cook these amounts and ring her. Go the second way. A kitchen standing still at six in the morning is a far worse thing than one slightly over-cooked sabzi, and the whole point is that a new cook can run the day with nobody to explain it. The lock protects the software. The unlock protects the dabbas.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out money completely. No payment records, no monthly bills, no who has paid till when. Also leave out any way for the 140 customers to log in and pause themselves. The morning count is what actually breaks and what actually costs her in wasted rice, and it breaks daily. Billing breaks once a month and the notebook survives it. A customer login means teaching 140 people a new habit, which is a second, harder project wearing the same coat.

How you would know it worked

Chitra goes to a wedding in Nashik for two nights and comes back to find the kitchen ran both mornings without one phone call to her, and there was no big steel pot of leftover rice sitting out at eleven.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a tiffin service in Pune, around 140 dabbas a day, and every morning I work out in my head what to cook and how much. I want a website that does that first, so I can just correct it. It should hold my customer list with what each person cannot eat, who is Jain, who takes no onion or garlic, and who is away this week, and from that it should work out the day's menu and the amounts, in kilos and in number of dabbas. Show it to me by half past five so I can change anything before the cooks come. Then the cook needs one very simple screen, big letters, only the amounts and a short line naming the few dabbas that are different. A new cook must manage it on her first day with nobody there to explain. If I have not checked it by six, show it to her anyway with a clear note saying so.