The planner forwards one line from the bride’s sister: “My husband can’t have sesame. Is that OK?” You run the menu in your head. Greek salad, no. Couscous, no. Hummus, yes, obviously, it’s tahini. So you swap the hummus and write back “We’ve got him.”

Then the focaccia arrives from the bakery with “may contain sesame” on the box, and nobody read the box.

Checking it in CostCook: the Lindqvist wedding, 120 guests on the Mediterranean Spread, one guest at table 4 who can’t have sesame.

Step 1: Open the order and find Before you confirm

Every draft order has a checklist at the top. Two of its items are about this: Review allergens and Guest restrictions.

The order’s checklist: “Before you confirm · 1 of 5 done. Confirming locks quantities and prices, and starts shopping, prep and pack.” Date set is done. Fix the price shows 36.6% food cost, over 30%. Review allergens shows None reviewed on 6 dishes. Add the customer is optional. Guest restrictions shows Not declared · add or mark none. The Confirm order button is greyed out.
Six dishes, none reviewed for allergens, and nobody's said yet who's eating.

Confirm order stays greyed out until the allergens are reviewed. Guest restrictions doesn’t hold it back, so it’s easy to skip. Don’t.

Step 2: Put the guest on the order

Tap Guest restrictions, then Add a restriction. Set Restriction to Allergy and Allergen to Sesame. Who (optional) is for whoever has to find him on the night: “table 4, bride’s brother-in-law”. How many guests is 1.

The Guest restrictions dialog: “Declare allergies or dietary needs for the guests on this order.” Restriction: Allergy. Allergen: Sesame. Who (optional): table 4, bride’s brother-in-law. How many guests: 1. Buttons: Add restriction and Cancel, and below them None declared.
One guest, one allergen, and a note saying who.

Tap Add restriction. If nobody at the event has a restriction, tap None declared instead, so the order says someone asked.

Step 3: Read what the order says, carefully

Back on the order, What to look at now checks every dish against sesame.

What to look at: “table 4, bride’s brother-in-law: Sesame”. In green: “No conflicts with the guests’ restrictions · 28 ingredients unreviewed”. Below it in amber: “Check: 28 ingredients not reviewed for allergens”. Then: “Read from today’s catalog. Confirming the order freezes this reading.”
No conflicts found, because nothing has been checked yet. Go by the amber line.

“No conflicts” in green only means nothing on file contains sesame, and nothing is on file yet. The amber line says 28 ingredients haven’t been checked. Go by that one. Unknown is never clear.

Step 4: Answer each ingredient from its package

Open the order’s Pack tab and tap Review 28 ingredients to get the list, then open each ingredient’s Allergens page with the package or the supplier’s spec sheet in your hand. Each of the nine allergens gets one answer: Contains, May contain, Cross-contact, Free from, or Not checked if you haven’t seen it.

The tahini is the easy one.

The allergens page for Tahini: “Go down the list with the package label or spec sheet in hand.” Sesame is set to Contains, with the source “Package label, read Oct 10”.
Tahini: sesame, Contains, from the package label.

The focaccia is the one you’d miss. The bakery’s spec sheet says it’s made on a line that also makes sesame bread.

The allergens page for Focaccia sheet. Sesame is set to May contain, with the source “Bakery spec sheet, read Oct 10”. The Draft with Sage button sits above the rows.
Focaccia: sesame, May contain, from the bakery's spec sheet.

When you save, CostCook asks where you checked, so the next person sees the answer came from a label.

Draft with Sage can suggest answers from an ingredient’s name. It only ever suggests contains or may contain, never free from, and nothing is saved until you take it. A name can tell you tahini has sesame. It can’t tell you what else the bakery runs on that line.

Step 5: Open View dish checks

Once every ingredient is answered, tap View dish checks.

What to look at, now in red: “1 conflict with the guests’ restrictions · 1 unresolved check”. View dish checks is open. Focaccia and Whipped Goat Cheese: “Check: Focaccia sheet (may contain) · table 4, bride’s brother-in-law: Sesame”. Hummus and Crudité: “Conflict: Tahini (contains) · table 4, bride’s brother-in-law: Sesame”. Each dish has an Open recipe link.
Hummus is a conflict, focaccia is a check, and each names the ingredient.
  • Conflict means an ingredient is confirmed to contain it. The hummus has tahini through its sauce.
  • Check means CostCook can’t say yes or no: may contain, cross-contact, or not answered. The focaccia needs a decision from you.

On a spread like this, the hummus and the bread sit on a shared table with shared spoons, so pulling them off his plate isn’t enough. Plate his meal separately in the kitchen, label it for table 4, and write what he’s getting in the restriction’s Who note, where the cook will see it.

Step 6: Confirm, knowing what you’re confirming

Fix whatever else the checklist asks (here it was the price), then tap Confirm order. A conflict doesn’t stop you, and that’s deliberate: his plate may already be planned around it. The dialog lists the conflict so you can’t miss it.

The Confirm order? dialog for Lindqvist wedding: 120 guests, revenue $5,704.80, food cost $1,711.42. A red box: “Guest restriction conflict to review. Conflict · Hummus and Crudité: Tahini (contains) · table 4, bride’s brother-in-law: Sesame. Confirming records these checks with the order. Review the dishes before serving.” Buttons: Confirm and Keep editing.
The conflict, named, right above the Confirm button.

The dialog lists conflicts only. The focaccia check isn’t repeated there, so settle it in Step 5.

After you confirm, the order keeps the reading it was confirmed with, and the prep page shows the same checks to the cook, with table 4’s name on them.

What to look at after confirming: the same conflict and check, and at the foot “Checked at confirm · Sun, Oct 11” with a Re-check button.
Frozen at confirm. Re-check if a supplier changes something.

If the bakery sends a new spec sheet next week, update the focaccia and tap Re-check.

An owner can still use Confirm anyway to get past the checklist. It skips every open check on the order, not just this one, so use it knowing that.

CostCook doesn’t see your cutting boards and can’t promise a guest anything. CostCook detects, it never certifies. What you tell table 4 is on you.

Before you answer the planner

  • He’s on the order: Allergy, Sesame, one guest, with a note saying where he’s sitting.
  • Every ingredient on the menu was answered from a package or a spec sheet.
  • His meal is plated separately, and the Who note says what he’s getting.
  • The cook has seen the checks on the prep page.

Then write back “We’ve got him.”