This came up during our discussion on the pros and cons of electronic delivery for food magazines, and we thought it would be interesting to put the question out there. Do you display recipes on a laptop while cooking, or is that just begging for trouble?
Laptops in the Kitchen: What Do You Think?
Personally, we've started bringing our laptop into the kitchen more frequently in the past few months. We're finding the majority of our recipes online these days and displaying the recipe our laptop often beats jotting it down or using up paper to print it off.
We set the laptop on a table across the room from where we're actually cooking, so there's (hopefully!) no danger of accidentally spilling ingredients onto the keyboard. Having sticky fingers is sometimes an issue, but we can usually reduce the page size of the recipe so that it fits on one screen, thus reducing the need to scroll.
We also think we'll take a suggestion from Kitchn reader Tiamat_the_Red and start covering the keyboard with plastic wrap. If we had a Kindle or an iPhone, we would probably do the same thing but put the device in a sealed plastic bag.
The only downside to this high-tech move is not having an good system for taking notes or marking changes. We try to keep a spiral notebook for these things, but this can still be confusing when want to make the recipe again and need to figure out how our notes correspond with the online recipe.
Do you ever bring your laptop into the kitchen?
Related: Lamps in the Kitchen: What Do You Think?
(Image: Flickr member striatic licensed under Creative Commons)
Originally posted by Emma/The Kitchn
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I read recipes from my laptop all the time. Like you, I also find a lot of recipes online, but also because I use recipe software (Mastercook) to store and organize my recipes (awesome because you can use it to scale recipes & change units and because it gives nutritional analysis.)
view Willlow's profile
i dont...like you said, it begs trouble. i do print recipes out and place them in plastic sleeves/3 ring binder so that they are a bit more durable.
view sgnt13's profile
I try to put the laptop on a nearby surface which will not be used for the actual food prep - in my apartment the coffee table works fairly well.
I always forget to print things out while I'm at work and I don't have a printer at home. Most days I lack the patience to write a recipe down from the computer screen.
view sciencegeek's profile
I could not live without my computer in the kitchen. I actually have an old desktop that I put under the counter, a cheap 17" lcd, and an adesso waterproof keyboard. I use the desktop to watch tv in the morning, look up recipes, keep track of grocery lists, and check email with the morning coffee. I don't think that I could do a laptop though. I woulod destroy it too quickly.
view dmanciniaz's profile
I use my laptop all the time. All my recipes are text files.
Uses minimal space. Easy to edit. Can display on all sorts of things.
I just keep my laptop away from the general area of cooking. Like on a side table if I'm mostly using the stove. Or at the far corner of the dining table if I'm mixing stuff on one side.
view wunami's profile
I use my laptop in the kitchen. I do worry about spills. But it has become an important tool in learning how to cook properly. I recently made my first cheese lasagna that turned out exactly as expressed on a favorite podcast.
www.Cooks.com/podcast
I am thinking about mounting an iMac on the wall in the kitchen and using a wireless keyboard with protective cover.
view BlakeFox's profile
definitely use the laptop in -- iTunes and firefox are constantly running... i learned from my dentist an easy way to make it safe(ish): lay a sheet of plastic wrap over your laptops keyboard. in the event of a spill, this will add a couple seconds to your available reaction time, and it will protect from incidental splashes and such.
alternatively, there's always the touchbook. just slap it up on the fridge until you're done cooking, along with the plastic wrap over the touchscreen.
view arjuna's profile