Friday, September 15, 2017

Digital kitchen

Which app to choose

I have been using Bento for my recipes on my desktop and mobile. This was always kind of clunky and try-hard (a bit like the author - come on, I hear you...). Now it is part of the app graveyard for iOS 11, I'm having to make a move. But where to?

Free options

Evernote is what I use most. You can clip from the web, type in manually with lists, checklist and rich text tools. You also tag and sort/search by tag or free text search. You just create a notebook called "recipes" and away you go.

It's a web app, mobile and desktop - so it's pretty much anywhere anytime and one of the most indispensable digital tools out there.

I miss the "Food" app that Evernote no longer supports - which was basically a re-skin of your recipe notebook.

Google Docs will also do most of what you need, and you can share with the Google community pretty easily.

Collecting

The options above are mostly for organising your own recipes - though both with also handle links of course, and Evernote's clipping is pretty good. Other free collectors include Pinterest and Reddit. Copy Me That is a web app and on mobile. There is also a Google Chrome extension. It is also well worth a look.

Paid apps

Paprika has many admirers. It has lots of features and scaling recipes up and down, shopping list creation and exporting to Reminders or Calendar. But I don't like how you have to pay twice - for the desktop and for the iPad app - and the app appears to be iPad only, not phone. There is also no suck it and see option that I can find.

The one I'm currently using is Recipe Keeper. I like its clean interface and that it works on both phone and tablet. There's also a Windows version on the Microsoft store apparently, but no Mac version yet. So far I like it, and you can use it fully featured up to 20 recipes before deciding to buy.

What it lacks is a good export tool so that you can share (or move) the recipe itself rather than a link to it.

Any other suggestions?