Organize your food, recipes and ingredients with BlackBerry

Here is how shopping goes in my house: my wife asks me what I want for dinner during the week, she then takes that and creates a list, then she digs for coupons, then she starts adding stuff we don't need to the list based on the plethora of "great deals" she found while going through coupons, then she prints this list and we head out to the store only to find at the end of the trip that we're a hundred dollars over budget, which leads to her trying to convince me why we can't afford the data plan on my phone the whole way home. I saw the feature list for Appetite by SimpleLeap Software LLC and did a little "woohoo!" inside. Appetite is a recipe/shopping manager that is so feature rich for its extremely humble price tag, that I'm going to jump right to the feature list. Features When you first open the app you're greeted with a menu so pleasant that momentarily makes you forget you're using your blackberry. From here you have four options to choose from: My Recipes, Get Recipes, Grocery Lists, and Ingredients. My Recipes This is where you go to view all your recipes or input your own. From within My Recipes you have a categorized list which you can drill into and select a recipe (i.e. Main Dish ? Bench Press Peppers.) From here you can see an overview of the entire recipe (ingredients, description, preparation, etc.), use the recipe to create a grocery list (that will show up under Grocery Lists from the main menu), view an itemized list of ingredients, or view a step-by-step preparation guide. You can also view a picture of the finished product, email the recipe, or if it's one you've added yourself you can upload it to the Appetite database! Already tried a recipe and decided you'd rather use 4tbsp of garlic instead of 3tbsp? You can modify any recipe in your database as well! Get Recipes From here you can choose from one of four channels (the Appetite channel having the most to choose from), search by term for all available recipes, or view a description of the available channels. Once you've loaded a channel it has the same view you're My Recipes option did: a categorized view you can drill into to view the individual recipes that fall under them. When hovered over a recipe you can view its description, rate it, or download it. One of the neat things about downloading is you're not confined to the category in which it was listed. Grocery Lists This is one of the most convenient functions of the application, as it allows you to create multiple grocery lists, merge list together, add pricing to items, and view lists you've created from individual recipes. You can create grocery lists directly from here, or view and modify ones you've created from a recipe. Aside from having thousands of ingredients to search from, you can also add your own, along with notes, quantities, price, and the isle the item is on. There's even a spot to check for if you have a coupon, which will add an indicator icon to the item under the list view! As you shop, you can press the scroll button to check an item off your list, which is indicated by graying it out. At the top of your list you also have a count of checked/unchecked items to track your shopping progress. As you pick up items you can input their price (things automatically have a price of $1 when first added) which will add to your total on the list view. You can also sort your grocery lists by item or isle to avoid doubling back for something. Ingredients This is the place where you can add ingredients that are found elsewhere in the application. All of your ingredients fall into categories which can be viewed by clicking on them. This is also the spot where most of my minor complaints lie. While it seems all of your ingredients come from this list, the only things you can change are the name, and the category it falls under. What this means is any time you change info in another part of the application (price, isle, notes, etc.), it's back to the defaults the next time you add it to a recipe or grocery list. While I realize things like price and isle are subject to change from time to time, being able to save this info would help in budgeting before going to the store, and make adding the info feel more constructive when shopping. Things I Would Change When all is said and done, the pros far outweigh the cons, and there is just too much Appetite can do for you to avoid grabbing this wonderful application! To purchase Apatite for BlackBerry, go here. Price $9.99