Earlier this month, the Food Network released a new, improved version of its app that promises to allow users to create their own grocery lists, search via ingredient or preferred chef, and basically allow your phone to live the 1950’s dream kitchen fantasy, minus the circle skirt color coordinated with the countertop.
The app enables users to search by ingredient or by dish or by chef, create a shopping list from their recipe box, and set up to six different timers on their phones. It sounds amazing. I’d totally download it if my phone weren’t full of pictures of my cat.
Unfortunately, the app does not seed jalapeños for you so that the juice doesn’t soak into your nail beds and burn for 12 hours. It also doesn’t explain why the supermarket around the corner — the one that always tries to trick you into buying much more expensive organic bananas by putting them in a display in the middle of the produce section and then shoving the regular-ass bananas into a corner by the onions — doesn’t have any dill for the fourth day in a row. It doesn’t un-melt the spoon you accidentally left resting on the surface of a pan as you took a call from your mother. The recipes aren’t lovingly written up in the comforting prose of Deb Perelman. And the app doesn’t provide a constant stream of comments from disgruntled users who didn’t use any of the called-for ingredients in the recipe and are Very Disappointed that things did not turn out. The supermarket didn’t have any fennel so I just used some celery. I forgot to buy beef, so instead I used packaged bologna. We were out of cooking wine, so instead I used some old bleach I had lying around. My family hated it! That’s the last time I trust Alton Brown! which is pretty much the best thing about cooking with recipes you find on the internet.