App of the Week: Appetites

App of the week: Appetites

Appetites is a series of cooking lessons from chef-bloggers we’re supposed to know (and care) about. The set-up looks like it was inspired by the Brady Bunch, not the first group the Accidental Locavore would turn to for  food inspiration. Each of the nine bloggers/cooks has between 4-8 recipe videos with dishes ranging from blueberry smoothies or egg salad sandwiches to soups, burgers, pasta dishes and desserts. Now why you need a video to make an egg salad sandwich is beyond me, but then so is wanting to make an egg salad sandwich. When you click on a recipe, you get a list of ingredients, which may be e-mailed to your phone (and edited, in case you happen to already own salt and pepper) and a step by step video on how to prepare them. There’s also a Twitter and Facebook link so you can brag about your dishes.

If you’re a beginning cook, this could be a good starting point. The videos do a pretty thorough job of breaking down and explaining each step (including turning the oven on…) and there’s also a written list of steps. Some of my issues with the site: there is no organizing the recipes into say, main courses, desserts, etc., it’s alphabetical. It’s not too hard to scroll through them now, but if the app expands, this could be more of a problem.

Unfortunately, Appetites is not a very pretty site. There’s no worry about gastro-porn here. Everything is shot in a dish on a place mat (sometimes with a coordinating napkin), the dishes look like they were all shot on the same day with the same lighting, and the same photographer. It all looks kind of brown, even the guacamole…(which is a terrible recipe for guacamole, try this instead). At $.99 per “class” it’s expensive, however you can get “packs” at $2.99.

App rating: 1.5 out of 5 (possibly a 2 if you’re a beginning cook and like brown food)

Developer/Seller: Clear-Media

Cost: $4.99 for the starter pack then $2.99 per pack the summer one has 6 “classes” or $.99 per “class”

Compatible with: iPad