Some of you may be too young to have even read the Dick Tracy comic strip in the newspaper (who even reads newspapers anymore, as you sit in front or your computer reading this blog?), but he was a super cool police detective with even cooler gadgets. As early as the 40’s he had a 2-way wrist radio, very forward thinking at the time, even the simple digital watch didn’t come on the scene until the 70’s. Now you’re probably wondering what does Dick Tracy and his watch have to do with food?

Well, a few months ago I was heading into Safeway and realized I didn’t know all of the ingredients I needed for a recipe. I live in the hills 20 minutes from town, so you have to make the most of every trip, and make do at home when you’re missing an ingredient. Well, low and behold, I remembered I had google on my iphone, so I googled the recipe and sure enough, I found it and the list of ingredients, how cool is that?! So I walked through the store picking up the ingredients using my little iphone as my list, that’s where Dick Tracy plays into the story, ultra-cool, tech savvy, useful gadget!

That was just the beginning, with all of the app’s for the iphone, I now have an entire panel of food applications on my phone! Cookbook fetishes tend to run in our family (our mom was a resource librarian, books are in our blood), I have stacks of them, along with stacks of recipes I have pulled out of magazines and printed from the food network site. My iphone is so much more convenient, it’s like having the Library of Congress cookbook section at my fingertips! Most of these app’s are free, some are 99 cents or $1.99, same price as the used cookbooks I can buy in the Livermore Library used book store, and don’t gather dust, what a deal!

I have used epicurious most frequently (I used to watch the t.v. show early on, and then look up the recipes online), then there is the old stand by Betty Crocker, Allrecipes, Crock Pot, Tapas Lite, Whole Foods, Drinks Free (an alcoholic beverage recipe list that is unbelieveable, over 5,800 recipes! We used it up at Lake Almanor to show the bartender how to make a Hurricane.), bigoven, and more!

So if you have an iphone and don’t know what’s for dinner, pull that puppy out and head for town! More iphone foodie tips to come in the future…Dick Tracy, over and out!

~ it’s really nancy