Foodie collaborates with RTHK’s Angelina Draper for our tech section, which is especially for the technological foodie. Each week, Angelina talks tech, laying out a few of the best food apps on the virtual market, so that you dear Foodies can use your smartphones to effectively sort through the dizzying choices of restaurants, recipes and reviews that populate the world wide web. This week we check out Annabel’s Essential Guide to Feeding Your Baby and Toddler.
As a mother of two young “foodies”, the name Annabel Karmel is as impressed in my mind as are Elmo, Mickey and Elsa. That is why I didn’t think twice at handing over a hefty £4.49 (HK$52) for Ms. Karmel’s mobile app – even though a collection of her books sits in our kitchen.
Annabel is famous for creating easy-to-follow recipes that appeal to children and adults alike. In our household for example, her beef stew recipe – which incorporates apple – has long replaced our traditional recipe.
Like her books, the design of the app is clean and colourful, relying heavily on pastels and beautiful photography. Recipes are divided into three age-specific categories and one children and family group. There are food-related tutorial videos (how to skin a tomato, tasty vegetable wrap, animal cupcakes etc.) and, thanks to a partnership with the Essential Parent Company, there is a compilation dedicated to parenting questions such as teething, reflux, sleep etc.
The meal planner is one of my favourite features of this app. It allows users to build a detailed meal plan per child by simply pressing a button within each recipe. There is also space for your notes, and recipes can be added to a favourites folder.
Another nifty feature is that ingredients added to the shopping list are subdivided into categories, making it easy to find them in the supermarket. A unit converter (metric/imperial) and timer-function add to the completeness of this app – justifying the price tag.
If you already have Annabel Karmel’s books, some recipes might be repeated. The app, however, is worth getting for the interactive meal planner and convenience of having a fountain of inspiration on-the-go.
Written by Angelina Draper, multimedia journalist and broadcaster with 10-plus years experience in social and digital media, e-commerce, web and business development. Specialist topics include digital media, mobile, social media and other technology-related topics.
http://angelinadraper.com/
