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Everything's coming up food apps this week before Thanksgiving, and I recently bought an iPad, so -- voila -- the first post in a periodic series looking at Food & Drink Tech.
I've been eager to play with apps that can do what neither #teaminternet nor #teamcookbook is capable of -- especially ones that can make my cooking more interesting and less stressful. I'm only on the hook for a couple of dishes this holiday, so I was also looking to learn something new, since I won't be time-chopped.
$4.99 was the most I was prepared to pay, which knocked several contenders, including the gorgeous-looking new Food 52, Baking With Dorie, the sure-to-be-amusing Mario Batali Cooks! and Mark Bittman's well-rated How to Cook Everything off the table. (I nearly misread the price tag for the Culinary Institute of America's app as $4.99. It costs forty-nine ninety-nine and for that price I better receive a CIA diploma along with it.) I checked out six apps this week; below, my thoughts (along with which device I was on and how much it cost).
TURKEY TIME MANAGER: Chow's Thanksgiving Dinner Coach
iPhone (only), free
Satisfied With: This app steers you through T-Day dinner. From a shopping list that lets you cross off items when you put them in your cart to a minute-by-minute, page-by-page accounting for your prep time and oven space (you can choose to start Wednesday or Thursday, even), this is a holiday saver for first-timers, nonplanners and the Thanksgiving-intimidated.
Hungry For: You'll cook what Chow tells you to cook (though you can exclude dishes), and you'll like it -- there are NO recipe options. I'd love an iPad edition, and tutorials. The dream app would contain real-time timers that remind you of where you should be in the cooking process, let you tell it where you're behind, and serve you up some of Chow's excellent fakes and fixes to catch up.
LOVE IN A CRUST: Evan Kleiman's Easy as Pie
iPad, $4.99
Satisfied With: Where the heck was this during my NaBloPieMo last November? Evan's the host of KCRW's Good Food radio show, and a pie fanatic like me. Each recipe comes with truly beautiful, enormous images and Evan's lilting voice (hear her dreamy exhale of the word "meringue" -- that's a pie superfan right there). The video steps are thorough, strong on technique, and in 100% real time, just what pie beginners really need. The recipe collection includes sweet and savory, traditional and not-so-much (apple-butternut-bacon pie with a candied walnut crumble topping).
Hungry For: Browsing through the categories (specialty pies, pudding pies, Evan's favorites, crusts, and toppings) is definitely meringue for the eyeballs -- but when I'm trying to find her butternut bacon recipe, I have to remember the category or swizzle my index finger across a lot of screenage to find it again. A recipe index and searchability by name, ingredients and pie expertise level -- plus the ability to organize and mark favorites -- would be great.
FOOD BLOGGER WISDOM: Appetites
iPad, $4.99
Satisfied With: I love that it's mostly food bloggers curating this app, including BlogHer Publishing Network members La Fuji Mama, The Paupered Chef and What's Gaby Cooking. (Note that BlogHer has no relation with the creators of the app.) The bloggers created diverse and mostly appealing recipes (coconut Israeli couscous, a "deadly" chocolate almond toffee that I'm totally making this weekend), though a few seem a little too simple, at least for me. Each dish includes a video step-by-step tutorial -- a game-changer for beginning cooks -- and a pre-download audio intro by the blogger, so you can know before buying if you are OK with the ingredients and the time commitment.
Hungry For: I want to see more bloggers I love in this app please, stat. You can buy themed recipe packs as well as individual recipes -- but I'd like to see more variety, topical organization, and searchability to the offerings; I don't want to have to poke at each recipe to find, say, something vegan.
HANDS FREE(ISH): iCookbook
iPad, $4.99
Satisfied with: Voice activated paging! The future is now! This app is really well organized -- you can search and filter the very large, easy-to-read-while cooking recipes by ratings, various ingredients and themes. Adding a recipe is intuitive, and I love that you can sort the shopping
