# KitchenTales: Turning Loved Ones' Voice Memos into Heirloom Recipes with Google Gemma & ElevenLabs

> Source: <https://dev.to/athlawange/kitchentales-turning-loved-ones-voice-memos-into-heirloom-recipes-with-google-gemma-elevenlabs-107e>
> Published: 2026-10-02 11:03:35+00:00

*This is a submission for the [Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend](https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-weekend-2026-10-01)*

Every family has a loved one—a Nonno, Abuela, or aunt—whose cooking is magical, yet **they never write down a single recipe**. When asked, they send a rambling voice memo: *"a splash of olive oil, reduce whole milk slow, brown until it smells like home."*

I built **KitchenTales** for **Nonno Giuseppe, Abuela Carmen, Auntie Priya, and Elena** to capture and preserve their spoken culinary soul before it's lost to time.

**KitchenTales** turns casual audio voice memos into structured heirloom recipe cards using open-weight AI:

**Turn messy spoken voice memos from loved ones into treasured heirloom recipes.**

*Built with ❤️ for the [Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend](https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-weekend-2026-10-01)*

Every family has a friend, grandmother, or uncle whose cooking is pure magic—yet they **never write down a single recipe**.

Whenever you ask how to recreate their signature ragù, focaccia, dal, or birria, they send an unmeasured, rambling voice memo:

*"Listen kiddo, brown your chuck roast slow until it crusts, throw in whatever carrots and onions you have, grate a little nutmeg, and add a splash of milk before the wine... that's the secret nobody tells you."*

Handwritten notes get grease-stained and lost. Generic recipe blogs lack the intimate family tricks. **KitchenTales** was built to preserve these irreplaceable audio memories forever.

Drop in an unmeasured voice memo, and open-weight **Google Gemma AI** listens, extracts precise quantities…

Built with pure vanilla web standards (zero bundlers, instant load):

`index.html` & `css/styles.css` — 3D tactile buttons, glassmorphic depth, and warm culinary typography (`Fraunces` & `Outfit`).` js/gemma-engine.js` — Client-side Google Gemma 2 processing harness for transcript extraction and dietary conversions.`js/voice-narrator.js` — ElevenLabs neural TTS + Web Speech continuous hands-free voice command listener.`js/recipes-data.js` & `js/app.js` — Preloaded generational voice memos and private local vault storage.

```
Spoken Voice Memo ──▶ Google Gemma 2 AI ──▶ Heirloom Card ──▶ ElevenLabs Voice Guide
("brown slow, splash")  (Entities & Secrets)   (Dual Units)      (Hands-free commands)
```

`SpeechRecognition` listener detects spoken triggers (
This project was pair-programmed with an autonomous coding agent:

*Preserving culinary heritage, one spoken memory at a time.*

**Built with ❤️ for Hacktoberfest 2026: Build for a Friend.**