By Ben Lashar and Tyler Fenwick
COOKING HAS COME A LONG way since people foraged for produce by hand and cooked meat with mostly fire and patience. The digital age changed people’s relationships with what they eat, with the internet making finding and ordering food easier than ever before. To find some of the most helpful technological advancements for cooking, Indiana Minority Business Magazine asked some Hoosier culinary experts about their favorite apps.
Tasty
“If I cook at home and I need inspiration I like the Tasty app. … I love their videos. Instagram is where I first saw it. Let’s say I have steak on hand, I type in ‘steak’ and it gives you endless recipes involving steak. It’s super easy to use. It gives you pictures to go by and step-by-step instructions, and Tasty recipes are always really good. In my opinion, it’s easier than a cookbook.” — Heather Bravo, co-owner of Don Juan Taqueria
Food and Wine Magazine
“I like Food and Wine Magazine. You can get all of these (culinary publications) in electronic form.” — Watez Phelps, program chair of hospitality administration at Ivy Tech Community College, Evansville
Door Dash and Uber Eats
“We use Door Dash and Uber Eats not for profit because they charge a lot of money. They charge 25-30%. Mostly, it’s for advertisement. … They’re big companies and they put your name on their lists, and lots of people see that.” — Lakvhir Johal, owner of India Palace Restaurant and Amber Indian Restaurant
Lincoln Square Pancake House
“It’s our proprietary app. It’s an ordering system. When you log into the app it knows who you are. All you do is create an order. Let’s say I want flour. … Behind the scenes, the program already knows what local vendor we want to use or what vendor has the best bargain, and it sends the order directly to them. … There’s 10 or 15 vendors behind the scenes, so (employees) don’t have to call all of them individually. It also gives reports [on] how much it is we use. Are we using too much of this? If one store is buying too much bacon, we can see that.” — Pete Apostolou, Lincoln Square manager and designer of their app
OpenTable
“I like the Open Table app for restaurant reviews, since diners can only submit a review if they actually made and kept a reservation. The reviews seem more thoughtful and balanced than some other review apps.” — Jolene Ketzenberger, consultant for the city of Fishers
Allrecipes Dinner Spinner
“You can type in what you’re thinking about for dinner, whether it’s vegetables or whatever it is, then they have a dinner spinner, and it gives you random options of what you can do.” — Elizabeth Belange, marketing and promotions director for Sun King Brewing