iPhone Apps

Ok, I am the last person who should be promoting iPhone apps, since all I currently have is a plain old mobile phone with a pre-paid SIM card…..But this is something I would issue to all first year analysts or anyone starting to work in finance or real estate.  Latham & Watkins has done a few of them - all free - for Banking and European Banking.

  

I wonder if it has the real finance jargon like “open the kimono,” “come to Jesus meetings,” “a little bit pregnant,” and many of the phrases that Goldman Sachs has banned from emails?

Time for an iPad?

I’ve never been a first adopter and I’m content for now with my lightweight Kindle.  

But the kitchen makes me want an iPad. Specifically, this guy’s kitchen  

I wish I’d had one when I bought artichokes for the first time and said “what the %”#@ do I do with these?” Much more convenient than running to the computer to Google “how to cut artichokes” or writing down recipes on paper…and possibly watch a movie or TV while cooking.  When they invent the perfect create your own cookbook app, that might make me take the plunge.

And the low-tech version…

Kitchen Calculus

Well, I haven’t gone so far as to calculate rates of change and to-the-millisecond time to cook eggs at different altitudes (there’s a best-selling German iPhone app for that, plus I hate hate HATE eggs), but I’m shocked how much math I use in the kitchen!

Herr J laughs at my cooking using calculator, scale, charts, and tape measure.  The tape measure doesn’t get too much use, but the calculator gets a real workout.  Even simple cooking is a bit of an adventure….the recipes are usually in American, the ingredients sold in metric, and the oven in Celsius. Or the recipes are really large and I want to make a smaller amount.  For even more fun, most European recipes measure by weight; American by volume.  For pastry and such things requiring precise ratios or relying on chemical reactions, this is a must. But beyond those, it seems one more example of the need to be as exact as possible (link to article on precision). Whatever the reason, I’m a convert. My trusty kitchen scale shows grams and ounces, and I love it! 

My first macaron attempt nearly ended upon reading the first ingredient....“900g of egg whites, how the $%@# do I know how many eggs that is??!”. But the dream of tasty macaron-y goodness won me over, and instead I bought a dozen eggs and a scale. And after cracking about 10 of them and not being even close to 900g, out came the calculator to reduce the recipe.  Problem solved, and shockingly tasty and pretty salted caramel macarons.

I finally resorted to just taping a chart to the backsplash behind the stove. I still need the calculator, but at least I don’t have to run to the computer to look up how many mL to an ounce to a cup and F° to C°. The Smart Baker is selling useful aprons or towels with common kitchen conversions.  Great idea, but there are no metric conversions.

I’m off to buy an apron and a Sharpie…..