Technology has changed the way we eat.
Foodies load cooking demonstrations and chefs’ playlists onto their iPods. Business people preview wine lists on restaurant websites so they will look smarter in front of clients. College students across the country get dinner from or by texting Papa John’s. Denver restaurant-goers book reservations through OpenTable and New Yorkers buy and sell reservations for tables that are already taken on Table- Xchange, an online marketplace.
In an effort to explore these and countless other options, I vowed to abandon my cookbooks, restaurant guides and finger-stained recipe cards for one week and do all of my routine foodie obsessions as a wired foodie, using only my computer, phone and iPod to guide me to food and drink.
I compiled all the e-mails and tips I’ve gotten about new tools that are out there and, in true blogger fashion, kept a journal of my experiences and more than 30 resources to remember. Click with caution — I learned that in some instances having access to all these options can take as much time as it saves.
Sunday 02.17.08. Grocery shopping and online recipes.
As I made this week’s grocery list, I needed a little inspiration. I went to my inbox for the latest e-newsletter from Marczyk Fine Foods (sign up at ) and scrolled to the “What’s Fresh Now?” section, which includes great seasonal ideas.
I also found two award-winning recipe blogs that I trust, and The Simply Recipes posting for chicken piccata, with its step-by-step photos, made me want to cook along.
Inspirational clicking was fun, but it was time to get down to business. I had 2 pounds of carrots in the fridge that I needed to contend with.
Carrot soup? In addition, my husband asked for lasagna this week.
I loaded my three go-to recipe sites: , and , and found more than enough options. Among the three sites, there is access to some 100,000 recipes from countless celebrity chefs and magazines like Gourmet and Cooking Light, not to mention video tutorials, food and wine dictionaries, and virtual recipe boxes.
Before grabbing my coat, I logged on to to see if anything on my list was there. I entered my ZIP code and bingo, Life cereal for a dollar off. We love Life.
Monday 02.18.08. Specialty blogs and high-altitude baking.
Around lunchtime I remembered that I am on cupcake duty for my cousin’s birthday this weekend. It occurred to me that there must be a blog for cupcakes; there is one dedicated to just about every other food item.
I logged on to and found Her recipe for peanut-butter-filled chocolate cupcakes looked irresistible. I pasted the recipe into an e-mail to my husband, asking him to please pick up the chocolate, cream cheese and heavy cream on his way home from work.
Before getting back to work myself, I checked the high-altitude page on the Colorado State University Extension website () to see how to adjust the recipe for altitude. I’d need to decrease the sugar and baking powder a bit and increase the oven temperature by about 20 degrees.
Tuesday 02.19.08. Restaurant info to go.
I picked the time and the restaurant, but of course I still managed to be running late and without an address for today’s business lunch. I recently bookmarked and on my BlackBerry to access full-fledged reviews on the go, but I didn’t need all that detail this time. I just wanted the location. I sent a text message with the name of the restaurant and the word “Denver” to g-o-o-g-l-e (466453), and a message came back with the address. (Nontexters can call Google at 800-GOO-G411; the toll-free call is cheaper than 411).
Wednesday 02.20.08. Blogs to bookmark.
Timed to the weekly dining sections, I do most of my food and wine reading on Wednesdays. This week seemed like a good excuse to see what online sites I should check more regularly, so I e-mailed food friends from coast to coast asking for suggestions. I heard about , , and countless other well-written blogs that I’d never be able to keep up with.
Instead of sifting through them all, I did the unthinkable — I bookmarked a blog about blogs, , and decided to check out one food blog from the 18-page list each week. I also bookmarked and , two sites that round up food news and writing from a variety of sources.
In addition to these online media outlets, one friend recommended a radio program. She suggested that I load American Public Media’s “The Splendid Table” broadcasts onto my iPod.
Not ready for podcasts? Host Lynne Rossetto Kasper sends out a weekly e-newsletter from
Thursday 02.21.08. Restaurant selection.
Tomorrow we have dinner with some friends, and I was put in charge of picking the spot. I retrieved this week’s “Table Talk,” the e-newsletter from 5280 magazine (5280.com to subscribe), from my inbox to see if there were any new openings. I checked the Denver message boards on , , and to see what other area foodies were saying, went to to remind myself what Tucker Shaw has reviewed lately, and checked a few contenders on
I’m usually a sucker for newbies, but none of them were calling out to me, so I proposed an old standby, Potager. A recent posting on Chowhound reminded me of the chef’s dedication to true local, seasonal food, and I was curious to see how she was carrying this out in the dead of winter.
While I was at it, I pulled up I’m meeting someone for coffee next week and needed to figure out where we should go. I scrolled down “The Big List” and found the name of that one I’d been meaning to try, Illegal Grounds on East 17th Avenue.
Friday 02.22.08. Tableside texting.
Our cocktail order hadn’t even been taken when it happened — everyone started asking me detailed questions about the menu. To try to avoid “work,” I told them about a new service called FishPhone, where you can text the word “fish” and the name of a species to 30644 to receive a quick environmental report about that fish.
My little trick worked. They started talking about a similar service for fast-food nutrition stats while I flagged the waitress for a drink.
Saturday 02.23.08. Troubleshooting, ingredient ordering and the holidays.
I was dicing my way through the day in preparation for dinner with friends when out of nowhere I was ravenous. How did it get to be 2 p.m.?
As my husband went to throw together some tuna sandwiches, a problem arose. We were out of mayonnaise. Fueled by the challenge, I told him we’d just make some. I thought I remembered how but logged on to just to be sure — I had no interest in winging it when we were dealing with an emulsion and a lot of really good olive oil.
While I was on the site I decided to add a pre-dinner drink to the menu. Since we were having Indian, I searched for drinks made with tea and found Kashmiri Chai With Gin. Perfect. I clicked on the “send to cell” link and typed in my friend’s phone number, asking her to pick up a couple of things on her way over.
Lying in bed after what was a really fun dinner, my brain wouldn’t shut off. Unfortunately, someone had mentioned Easter at some point in the evening.
With the big spring feast only a few weeks away it, occurred to me that I could lean on the entertaining gurus at for ideas. For wine pairings, maybe I’d find the courage to post my menu on the board at I could then see which local stores carry their recommendations at wine-searcher.com or just order them from I reminded myself that I had and to turn to for hard-to-find ingredients and kitchen tools. You know, in case I just couldn’t resist recipes that called for mahleb or a chinois.
My mind turned to all those other holiday menus I’ve been saving. Maybe I would finally get around to loading them into , which enables people to print their own family cookbooks. Or not.
After just one week as a wired foodie, the constant access to any recipe, any review, any reservation left me exhausted. I fell asleep thinking maybe we should just thaw a couple of jars of that carrot soup for Easter this year.
Stacey Brugeman is a Denver freelance writer.
