5 Favorite iPhone Apps from a Profoodie Perspective

This was the post I wrote while traveling home from a business trip this past Saturday. Enjoy!

I’m sitting at the airport waiting to board a flight back to Pittsburgh.  For most of last week, I was in Atlanta conducting market research for my job.  I’m exhausted, my mind is racing and I’m so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed soon.  But, bottom line, my project was a lot of fun and well worth the long days.

A perk of this trip was the opportunity to dine with several intriguing dinner guests about topics ranging from activities of the day to social networking practices, and even a little about this blog.  One night, I dined at a lovely Thai restaurant in the shadows of Atlanta’s downtown towers.  That was when I learned the editor-in-chief of a popular trade publication and I share the same passion for spicy food.  Another evening dinner was just outside of the downtown core at a place that creatively served fried green tomato fries with a spicy blue cheese sauce.  The memory of the crisp fried breading still haunts my dreams from time to time.

The topic of iPhone applications seemed to surface multiple times while talking to what seemed like hundreds of people over the past four days.  Since I view my iPhone as a portal for multi-dimensional communications with people all over the world, I was thrilled to be involved in such discussions.  Now I know a post about iPhone apps really has nothing to do with cooking.  However, I’m stuck sitting in an uncomfortable airport food court chair with a greasy bag labeled with a certain golden arches logo next to me.  I figured there would be no better reason than now to write this post for you.

Here are my 5 favorite iPhone applications:

Shopper: I am a classic example of someone who goes to the store to buy milk and end up leaving with $80 of food.  To help elevate that problem, I started writing shopping lists on any random piece of paper I could find.  Not surprisingly, this became problematic when I realized how weird I must have looked scratching off items on the back of an envelope.

The Shopper App to the rescue.  This 99 cent application allows me to save various lists for multiple stores or situations.  It’s populated with tons of ingredients that can be easily searched and added to my lists.  Plus, I can customize the ingredient list with any specialty items I use.  Other functions include budget and coupon tracking, easy organization, and lists can be password protected.

Lose It!: You may remember from my Citrus and Ginger Broccoli Slaw post, Brent and I are attempting to follow a low calorie diet to shed away extra pounds that were likely acquired from recipe testing for this blog.  Rather than joining a costly membership program, we opted for this free application to keep an accounting of our daily calorie consumption.

I highly recommend trying this app even if you do not consider yourself to be on a diet.  It was astonishing to realize how many calories I was actually consuming in any given day.  Thank you Lose It! for making me think twice about having a chocolate glazed donut for breakfast.

Dictionary.com: I am the first to admit I am a horrible speller.  Make that a TERRIBLE speller.  I believe it is attributed to growing up in the spell check generation where every word has been corrected for me since I was barely able to use a whisk.  Even with this blog, I try hard to proofread everything I write to ensure accuracy in the recipes.  However, there have been a few times when an error will pop through the screen and land squarely in the center of my forehead.  The Dictonary.com application is an alternative to the bulky book that collects dust on my desk.  I can’t tell you how many times it has saved me in a tough game of Scrabble.

Sherwin-Williams Color Snap: There’s nothing wrong with using the colors of food for inspiration when choosing a paint color.  The biggest challenge is spending the time to sift through thousands of paint chips at the store to get the exact shade of the artichoke green.  Sure I could bring a watermelon into the store to have it color matched.  But, what are the employees going to say when I whip out a knife, slice off a piece, and press it against the tiny scanner?

This application allows me to snap a picture, or select a saved picture, from my iPhone.  With a couple of touches with my finger, the app will generate the perfect color match of my favorite beverage.  Plus, it will provide me with recommended accent colors that compliment the primary shade perfectly.  I’m not required to use SW paint because the RGB color numbers are exactly the same for all brands.  However, I’m now more inclined to buy Sherwin-Williams as a thank you for providing such a creative tool.

Shazam: Have you ever shredded zucchini to the beat of a really great song on the radio only to wonder who’s singing it?  This application is hugely popular for this very need.  By holding my iPhone in the direction of the sound, Shazam records a snippet of the song.  It then searches through its database to find the exact title and name of the song.  What’s the best part? The search results also provide a link to iTunes so I can buy the song instantly.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve purchased songs this way.

 Print This Recipe  Subscribe to Culinary Cory