Rescue the recipes that exist only in someone's hands — the interview that converts a handful of this and cook until it looks right into measurements, the cook-along session that captures what paper cannot, and the cookbook format that keeps the stories attached to the food. Use when asked to write down grandma's recipes, preserve family recipes, how much is some flour, or make a family cookbook. Produces the recipe-extraction interview, the calibration tricks for unmeasured cooking, the cook-along protocol, the story capture per dish, and the cookbook assembly plan. A cousin of oral-history-kit, aimed at the kitchen.
▸The cook and the kitchen — who holds the recipes, their patience for being asked, and whether cooking alongside them is possible or this must run over calls
▸The rescue list — the dishes that would hurt most to lose, ranked; the festival dishes and the everyday ones both, since the everyday ones are the ones nobody thinks to save
▸The state of things — honestly, how much time and energy the cook has; the protocol for many relaxed Sundays and for a few precious visits are different
▸What exists already — the stained index cards, the annotated cookbook margins, the aunt who half-knows three of them
▸The audience — who the book is for, which decides language, units, and how much technique to spell out
✅ The bar it holds itself to
Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.
✓Extraction happens in the kitchen with the dish actually being cooked
✓Their units are calibrated, never replaced
✓Every recipe records tells, not just quantities and times
✓Each dish has its story page in the cook's own phrasing
✓Every written recipe passes a cooked-without-them test before the book
✓A short-time sprint version exists when circumstances need one
⚠️ What it refuses to do
**Asking for the recipe instead of the demonstration.** The words they have are not where the recipe lives.
**Standardising them mid-cook.** Measuring cups in their kitchen change the dish and the mood; calibrate silently instead.
**Recording quantities and skipping the tells.** The amounts without "until it smells nutty" is why family recipes die in transcription.
**Saving only the festival dishes.** The Tuesday food is the taste of the family; it is also the first thing lost.
**Perfecting the book past the cook.** The correction pass with them *is* the point; a posthumous masterpiece is the failure mode.
Install
npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcp