Missing the Point – Simple Feast Recipes Review

I like to cook. I have many cookbooks. I consider myself a pretty advanced home cook. I've successfully cooked my way through a couple of one of their chef's books (Michael Ruhlman). Yet I look at this app and scratch my head. The recipes are just like those found in any average cookbook: one (ahem, highly photoshopped) pretty picture of plated food, a list of ingredients, and a few instructions. Except it's less helpful, because the photos are so stylized that the food doesn't look approachable. In fact, some of the photos are downright silly (why are you showing a bowl of food from the side? I can't see what's in it!). The recipes don't help to dissuade me of the notion that I need to be a world-renowned chef to make the dish. Why aren't there any photos in a step-by-step? Why isn't there a video of the chef showing me how to make the dish? Why aren't the techniques accompanied by videos? It's especially bizarre to look at a recipe that I've made from one of Ruhlman's books and feel like I have no idea what's going on. I get it, the food is pretty, but this app is completely missing the point. Yes, I'd like to have recipes from Dan Barber, but I'd like to get more than I would from a Dan Barber cookbook. No, building a shopping list is not an innovation. Every single recipe app does that, and that feature has been around for more than 6 years in other apps. Here's the thing, make the food pretty, but not intimidating. Or, if the dish is intimidating, then have step-by-step photos or videos to help me, the home cook (and your target customer) understand how to get there. Without naming names, there are other apps available (one with a whisk on a yellow icon) that pack these critical features. Last, I have to say that it's particularly offensive to put a note in your app update that asks people to either leave a 5-star review or just email them with app ideas. Do they not understand why these reviews exist? Well, given how they clearly don't understand their customers, I can't say that I'm surprised.
Review by ladl;kja;rn433 on Simple Feast Recipes.