Have you ever wondered how to follow a particular instruction in a recipe? Have you ever wondered what exactly the recipe wants your mince or dice to look like, or what size it should be? Enter the miBook, which promises to take your cookbook out of the pages and into living color.
Show and Tell with Video: Cooking with the Mibook
The miBook is a little gadget like a handheld video game console or an electronic picture frame that can read video e-books, which are produced in cooperation with Food Network. These "books" are on SD cards that include text, video, and sound.
The reader itself is supposed to be a "personal digital assistant" for all kinds of things you might do around the house - fix plumbing or electrical work, hang wallpaper, even diaper a baby.
The cooking cards apparently include about 150 recipes, mostly culled from past Rachael Ray and Robin Miller shows on Food Network, and they include titles like Healthy Cooking for Kids and Amazing Party Food. The recipes are narrated and they walk you through each step of gathering ingredients, getting your utensils ready, and cooking through the recipe.
What do you think - would you want video to help walk you through some basic cooking tasks? At about $120 each, it's a bit of an investment. But it might make a great gift for a true cooking newbie. It also reminds us of this very cool Kitchen Sync concept - remember that?
• See a demo: miBook.com
• Buy: miBook MKC10 Cooking Kit Includes Quick and Easy Meals and Irresistible Desserts Recipe Cards, $119 at Amazon. Additional cooking cards are $20 each.
Comments (6)
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This looks kind of like "Cooking For Dummies." It's probably handy if you've never cut an onion before...but I think anyone who already knows the basics (or even rough basics) of cooking wouldn't even think of investing $120 in one, especially considering you can just find video online of how to do all that stuff (most on Food Network's own site).
I'd feel kind of like I was wimping out if I gave it as a gift...I'd want to at least give folks a cookbook I'd use myself, maybe one of Alton Brown's -- simple, explains everything, just there's no video.
I feel old; I'd much prefer reading a cookbook.
view SexyAnteater's profile
Isn't there something similar as a game for the Nintendo DS? Part of their "personal trainer" series I think. I've seen commercials for it recently.
view Shana Lee's profile
Put it on the list of "things nobody really needs." Obviously readers have computers. If we really need to check a video to learn how to do something unique, we'll download it there.
view violet222's profile
You could just use a laptop instead.
You can probably find videos of most cooking techniques on any of the now multitudes of video sites.
view wunami's profile
As silly as it seems for accomplished cooks, I'd love to get one of these gizmo's for my adult son for Christmas. He doesn't have a laptop and the desktop is too far away from the kitchen. Isn't there some way you could slide one into your giveaway package, and since no one else wants it, the contest could be rigged for me?
view nirvana's profile
A Nintendo DS costs around $120 and they have the Personal Trainer: Cooking for $20... so, I would rather spend my money on a DS than on a glorified youtube filled with recipes from the two hosts I hate the most from the Food Network.
view staria's profile