The designers of this app have thought of nearly everything you could want in an electronic cookbook. This, combined with videos that showcase the talent and wisdom of Mario Batali, give a student of Italian cooking a relatively comprehensive education in a short amount of time.
The first thing you see when you launch the app is a unique main menu. The main menu items are laid out in pie chart format and the submenu items are viewed by flicking through horizontally. It’s not as fast as other menu conventions, but it is very user friendly and allows for a cleaner and aesthetically pleasing interface.
Recipes are organized in a variety of categories so that you can browse based on how you want to search, whether it be by region, course or season, etc. Additionally there are predefined categories such as Quick Meals and Things That Kids Love. Of course, there is also a text search function if you are looking for something more specific.
The presentation of the individual recipes is well thought out by the developers. Each recipe begins with a page or section showing the essential information about the recipe, such as the English translation of the dish, a photograph, how long it takes to prepare, recipes that the dish can be paired with, as well a recommended wine pairing.
Each photograph is superimposed with a “play” icon to signify that there is a video to view. The videos are not included with the original download of the app but are downloaded on demand. They show the creation of a dish from the preparation to the plating.
Mario Batali, himself, cooks each dish and talks you through each step of the recipe so that you can get a fairly thorough understanding of the entire process before you begin cooking. Mr. Batali gives helpful hints and discusses alternative ingredients and methods in these videos, which in itself is invaluable, but also adds another dimension of liveliness to the app.
Once you begin cooking, you are guided through each of the steps that are visually separated from one another by cards. This separation makes it very easy to follow along. Each card has its own photograph of the step and if a timer is needed, you just tap on the timer icon.
Even a little detail such as the timer function was implemented well. The icon does not show up if a timer is not needed and after it is set, the running timer is superimposed above the cards. As the time expires you get an audio alarm as well as a message to indicate which step is complete. This is an example of the polish that went into this app.
Even before you begin cooking, the app helps you create a shopping list based on the ingredients of one or more recipes. A very nice touch is that you have the option of sorting your list by groups to make shopping at the grocery store more efficient. There are some dedicated shopping list apps that do not even provide this feature.
Other useful things beyond just recipes are a video section on Kitchen Basics in which Mr. Batali discusses ingredients and how to shop for them, another video section on Techniques, a Notes section for quick words of advice, and lastly, a Glossary with a pronunciation guide.
Altogether this is very competent programming combined with an excellent user interface to wrap up high quality instructional content.
Mario Batali Cooks! sells for $2.99
[etRating value=“ 5”]
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