Electronica in the Kitchen

I got an iPod Touch a few months ago, and I like it a lot—I can take pictures with it, and if there’s an Internet connection around, and there usually is, I can check my email if I get bored while sitting in a bar listening to my husband and friends play music, Google song lyrics to make sure they are singing things right, read the New Yorker magazine in really little type, and even watch a very small screen episode of Star Trek. I can even get books from the library to read and get a map if I’m lost (which sometimes gets me more lost, but never mind that).

One thing I haven’t done with it yet is put any music on it, which seems strange to a lot of people. I just hate iTunes; it always gives me trouble. But that’s neither here nor there; one of my favorite uses of the iPod is what I wanted to talk about today—it’s an easy, portable cookbook.

I use it to access the Enright CSA blog to follow recipes posted there, and I also find lots of recipes online. Perhaps the oddest way I use it as a cookbook is to open the folder of recipes I have collected on my doddering old desktop computer, choose the recipe I want to make, attach it to an email, and send it to myself so I can open it up on my iPod, which takes up just a tiny amount of room on the counter or table where I’m working.

I could get out my binder of printouts of the recipes, sure, but I’ve never gotten round to alphabetizing or otherwise organizing them, so it’s always a search to find them. And with the iPod, I can immediately divide or multiply ingredient amounts to make more or less using Google, which even kindly translates cups to tablespoons and so forth. It’s a one-stop kitchen aid and cookbook.

So, yes, it’s an expensive electronic cookbook, if that’s all I choose to do with it. But someday I will put some music on it, and then I can listen to Harry Chapin or The Band while I cook. Meanwhile, I can watch Captain Kirk battle the forces of evil in the universe while waiting for my sauce to come to a boil. Now, that’s win-win.