The Professional Chef App - CIA

The Culinary Institute of America, herein referred to as the CIA, has had it's students use this seminal tome as a reference for years, and by industry standards it is the best go to cook book in the world, as it covers food from every continent and by most accounts will equip you to work in any professional kitchen. Now, in the vein of user friendliness and affordability, the CIA has turned this vast compendium, of all things, into an iPad app. At $50, it's not the cheapest tool in the drawer, but you'd be hard pressed to find one more useful. 36 chapters, 850 recipes, 100 videos, 175 diagrams and 750 photos of the finished product, and a far easier interface to navigate as well as being far more interactive making this much better to use and transport than the 1056 page print edition. There is an ingredients index that pretty much covers everything, and will go into so much detail as to guide you to standards of quality and seasonal availability. If you can't put a nice meal together with this, then there is no hope for you. Available through iTunes.