Mark Bittman for iPhone

I've long been a fan of Mark Bittman's The Minimalist column for The New York Times (just now getting the URL for the link in this sentence and I'm already thinking about when I can try this). The column celebrates simple dishes made really well. What's not to like in that?

I had been eyeing his How to Cook Everything cookbook (which has been on my Amazon wishlist since before Christmas), when I noticed that there's a How to Cook Everything app for iPhone.

At just $5, it's a real deal, given that the book itself is $35 retail--even with Amazon's deep discount, the app is still way cheaper. Reportedly, the app contains all the book's recipes, plus you get other interactive functionality, like the ability to mark favorite recipes, add your own notes and even make shopping lists.

The app is great for browsing recipes, but a bit clunky to use as a reference while actually cooking, since the iPhone is apt to go dark and you have to swipe between steps. Although the iPad version apparently addresses this by allowing you to toggle off the go-dark feature, a good iPhone workaround is to just email the recipe to yourself (the app has a button for doing this) and then print it out or use a computer for reference. A nice advantage of doing this is having all the steps on one screen.

If you want a second opinion on why this is so great, check out CNET's review from today.