The big yellow Gourmet cookbook is one of my go-tos for weekend dinner planning. Now the entire contents of Ruth Reichl's culinary bible are on a free iPhone app—one that makes shopping lists for you.
It's great—you either search for recipes you already know (from the pages of Gourmet, Bon Appetit and a bunch of other Conde Nast-y pubs), or you browse the featured dishes—25,000 in all, including cocktails too. Once you've settled on a recipe, click the plus button to add it to your favorites, or better yet to your shopping list. Add all kinds of recipes to the shopping list, and it organizes all of their ingredients for you in a logical way for shopping: Produce, Meat & Poultry, Condiments, Canned Items, and so on. Already have salt? Just clear that bastard off the list and move on.
There are two things I don't particularly like: For one, you can't adjust the size of your recipe. You can't even add it twice, as if to double it. You can add as many recipes, but you can't double one.
The other thing I don't like is that it's hard to browse subcategories. I select "Side" from the Meal/Course browse menu, fine. I get 4364 results. I type in "rice" and it's whittled down to 490. Are these going to be the same basic set every time, in the same order? Maybe searching "rice" and "cashews" or something might whittle it down more, but there should be some middle ground, a randomizer, or like one of those other iPhone apps, a place to list all that you have in the fridge, so that it can suggest a dish. Maybe it's there, or coming soon. I'll keep looking, because it's free, and I already love it. [iTunes link via Wired]