Putting a computer in the kitchen is not a new idea. Neiman Marcus, the department store, included an ad for a Honeywell kitchen computer, priced at $10,600, in its 1969 Christmas catalog.

The ad featured a woman in need of a computer to manage recipe quantities and carried the slogan, “If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can compute.”

The latest generation of kitchen computers may be more successful, and not just because the ads are less patronizing.