Into this?
When I had an iPhone, I downloaded a bunch of food-related apps. Whole Foods and Food Network both have apps that allow you to enter an ingredient – say kale or pork tenderloin – and get recipes for it. I thought those would be really useful, but in the end I didn’t use them very much. I usually make a menu for the week on Saturday or Sunday, and I never could change my habit of going through cookbooks while deciding.
One app we do use often is Seafood Watch. Designed by the Monterrey Aquarium, it’s a guide to the best and most sustainable seafood available in your geographic area. My husband takes that one with him to Wegman’s and checks out what’s available against Seafood Watch’s sustainability measures, and picks accordingly!
But the real prompt for this post was the increasing availability of cookbooks in e-book form. They’re almost invariably less expensive than the traditional paper versions. And they’d solve that obvious space problem on my kitchen bookshelves. So I’ve been tempted to give e-cookbooks a try. Two things are holding me back. First, the tactile part of me is wondering if it would be fun to explore a cookbook in digital format – I just love to read cookbooks. Second, the practical side of me is wondering how it would be possible to follow a cookbook in e-format. Would it be reformatted and optimized for my Kindle? Or would the recipe text flow awkwardly, making me toggle between pages?
Can you imagine how nice it would be to travel and have a bunch of your favorite cookbooks with you? Or to actually have the recipe that someone asks for at a potluck? That’s the part that’s tempting me! So what do you think, Weekend Cookers? Has anyone joined the e-cooking revolution? I would love to hear your thoughts!
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting!
I'm hesitant to pick up e-cookbooks too. They just don't seem right to me.
ReplyDeleteI need to pick a cookbook up again. I haven't opened up one of mine in years! I bring my Mac into the kitchen and prop it up on one section of the counter that's far away from all the water and food as I'm making something. I have a ton of cookbooks but I've become such a fan of the cooking blogs!
ReplyDeleteI love that Seafood Watch app (available for droids too!). I do use my Food TV apps when I'm at the store because I don't shop with a menu in mind. I buy what looks good and so it helps to get some recipe idea on the fly so I can buy needed ingredients right away.
ReplyDeleteI have three principal problems with eCookbooks: (1) I NEVER have just one recipe open at a time and I don't like the idea that I can't just glance over -- but that I have to wipe my hands clean and hit a button, mouse, or screen -- to read the recipe I need at any given moment. (2) I often combine recipes or use recipes as suggestions, so I like to see more than one *at the same moment* -- not flipping thru screens. (3) One look at the spattered and stained pages of my favorite cookbooks and recipes tells me that electronics are not a good idea on my countertop. And if I have to print the recipe out before I can start cooking, why not just use the print version to begin with?
I'm probably not a good one to weigh in on this, as I have yet to even buy an e-reader, and don't read books on my computer or phone.
ReplyDeleteThat said, for me I think the drawback in the cooking area would be that I love the photographs that accompany the recipes or stories about the food, and I'm not sure how that would translate to the e-context.
I don't have an e-reader but I do use digital cookbooks sometimes if I get them from publishers. I load them in on my iPhone. The downside about this I find that I hate to bring my iPhone into the kitchen to read out a recipe in the kitchen because I know I am clumsy and my iPhone might get messy during the cooking process. I would hate to break or damage it that way. While it is a bummer when my cookbooks get dirty, it is not such a huge problem compared to the risk of a broken iPhone. However I am very picky these days which cookbooks enter my house. I think digitalising everything would break down that homey atmosphere of having cookbooks on the shelves.
ReplyDeleteMy friend has her recipes on her laptop and sits it on the counter to read from when she cooks. She really likes it that way. It might be nice but I think I would stick to the written cookbook.
ReplyDeleteI can't help you with e-cookbook experiences but I have a recipe application on my Mac (which I don't use very often now that I have a laptop - so any good suggestions for a Windows recipe application?). The recipe application is great, you can add pictures of your food, sort and search, I love it.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing is, you can enlarge the text so you can put the computer further away from where you're actually cooking, and still read the ingredients and methods. I use it regularly.
So I can imagine that with cookbooks you can do the same.
One of the reasons my wife wanted a kindle, was so she could keep her knitting, chrochet & craft patterns in it as well as recipes whether from ebooks or in PDF formats, which you can Kindleize by sending them to amazon for conversion.
ReplyDeleteI've been experimenting with this idea too. I currently have about ten cookbooks downloaded on my kindle. So far, it's not working well. If I don't make a conscious effort to mark a particular recipe as I'm reading, then it is time consuming to search back and find that page. The most recent cookbooks have interaction (there is some other term but I can't think of it) between the Table of Contents and the rest of the book. That makes it easier to locate a recipe, but still not as easy as flipping through a hardback. Also, I'm still reluctant to get my kindle dirty in the kitchen, as Candace mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI've used recipes on the laptop, and with little counter space that goes onto the dining room table just as a cookbook does. The idea of having the cookbooks easily accessible is a good one but it hasn't worked out well for me yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me take this opportunity to let you know that I'm not only glad you're bringing this up, but that your blog is one of my all-around favorites. So you've won a Liebster Blog Award, a way for book bloggers to thank other book bloggers for their terrific work: http://lynne-booknotes.blogspot.com/2011/12/liebster-blog-awards-winners.html
So it looks like sentiments are running against the whole e-cookbook thing. That's kind of what I thought, although I have also, like Natalie, Judith and Lynne, pulled up a recipe on my laptop (often from a Weekend Cooking post!) and cooked with the laptop on the counter.
ReplyDelete@Parrish -- I do like the idea of having knitting patterns on the Kindle. Smart idea!
@Lynne -- I have never won a blogging award before! You made my day!
I have a couple of food apps and they can be so cool!
ReplyDeleteI admit I am not a big cooking/baking person... about as close as I get to planning menus is reading these posts when I can on weekends and picking up ideas here :) Its just Al and I at home and he has a funky schedule so meal planning is not that big a deal here.
ReplyDeleteI like e-cookbooks! I love that I can make the fonts bigger so I can see it. And it's always handy, easy to find what I am looking for. Lately I've been using the iPad a lot in the kitchen for recipes. I had the Nook previously and downloaded some cookbooks with the Nook app. but never actually used it in the kitchen, I do with the iPad. But iBooks is what I mainly use now. I still enjoy curling up with a good cookbook. So I like both.
ReplyDeleteMy only excursion into e-recipes are the ones I am clipping to Evernote from the web and then use with my cell phone in the kitchen. That works well, but I could never use an e-cook book for inspiration. That requires turning over pages and looking at glossy pictures.
ReplyDeleteI've been wondering myself, but so far I've only gotten printed cookbooks. Not sure what I'll do when I get around buying an e-reader. The books would get less stained and earmarked, that's a plus. And it's probably easier to make notes in your e-book.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued with this idea, but still love my cookbooks. May have to find some modified plan that will work for me.
ReplyDeleteI have a few recipe apps as well. I can't believe ALL the cookbooks you own:)
ReplyDeleteGreat Weekend Cooking topic!
ReplyDeleteI recently downloaded a couple of e-cookbooks onto my ipad--several free Gooseberry Patch booklets using the Kindle app and a free Williams Sonoma cookbook in iBooks. It's great on the ipad because the ipad is the size of a small book and I can prop it in my cookbook holder on the counter while I cook. But there is something about having a shelf full of cookbooks that I just love--especially the beloved ones with wrinkled pages that have gotten wet over the years or stained by some ingredient. I don't know... that all kind of makes it special. :)
Cooking magazines are great on the ipad--and since I'm less sentimental about magazines than I am about cookbooks, so I love cooking magazines in e-format. I even think the photos look better on the ipad than they do on paper!
I love the Seafood Watch app, too. Have been using it for a few years now.
Hmmm... intriguing thought! I think I'd be way more scared of accidentally splashing while cooking though :)
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