Emeril Lagasse: iPod ReciPods

By JULIETTE ROSSANT What do you call a cookbook that you can download into an Apple iPod? Well, Emeril Lagasse calls them "ReciPods," but they're cookbooks all the same, just in a new medium and currently without pictures. Here's the simple pitch: 10,000 songs in your pocket? Big deal! How about 1000 Emeril recipes in your pocket? Go home, put on some tunes and create a little love and magic in the kitchen! Not too much information there, is there, but then again it is targeted at young, attention-deficit Americans... Oh, and it's very official, too, and someone who works for Emerils is a Mac-head, no doubt: there is already a VersionTracker page for this stuff. Well, there is one surprise in all this: Apple has not jumped all over this application with their own branding. The e-cookbooks have been available for almost two weeks now, a quiet release which some toolhead undoubtedly said was the way to go: "Just wait till the iPod alpha market tastes these, and people will be howling for 'em around the Net in no time." That's not quite how it played out on the little screen: a number of initial downloaders got only "gibberish" to pop up, though some managed to view them successfully. The successful one were left with the real problem though: what to do with these things? I mean, who ever said that kids cook? Best comment online so far: "not sure i’ll ever use them (drink menus are pretty handy) but a nice way to use the ‘notes’ section of your ipod." Imagine the text messages being shot around by masses of youth whose only kitchen experience centers on refrigerator raids. They read something like this: "Dude, meet @ McD to figure out over BigMac w fries." Whoah, Dude, supersize me! As The Boston Herald notes (and I agree), "The offering is so large that it is broken up into several different sets," which causes just another problem because iPod Notes cannot hold more than one set at a time. ReciPods come in two computer downloads, each with 17 identical sections averaging 25 or 30 recipes each. Did they forget to mention, too, that iPod Notes uses a font so small font that you cannot glance back and forth from stove to iPod while cooking? In that case, it might as well be a coffeetable-sized tome like Thomas Keller's wonderful The French Laundry Cookbook for all the good it does the cook. Lastly, long recipes require scrolling -- now your iPod is covered with tomato-sauce or cake-icing fingerprints. Good points -- and a funny climax -- from The Herald: click here to read the full article. Subsequent stories: TIME Previous articles: Get Your piPod for your iPod Emeril Lagasse Lays Apple iPod One "Epi to Go," Please! Tags: iPod --> back to superchefblog