By Anjum Choudhry Nayyar
Do you love to spice-it-up when it comes to cooking? Want to learn more about turmeric or curry leaves? Need to know where to buy them? Well, now there’s an app for that too! iSpice is a simple application that takes the fear out of cooking with spices, herbs and spice mixes.
The app for your iPhone/iPad/iTouch was developed by renowned cookbook writer, food writer, and an Indian cuisine instructor, Monica Bhide. Bhide has published three cookbooks, the latest being: Modern Spice: Inspired Indian recipes for the contemporary Kitchen (Simon & Schuster, 2009, which Padma Lakshmi called her personal – “BESTS.BOOK.EVER” in Newsweek.
Her recently released app includes basic spices like cumin, basic herbs like rosemary and more complex mixes like the Ethiopian Berbere and the Indian Garam Masala.
Each entry includes photos of the ingredient or dishes prepared with the ingredient in question. Each entry also has links to reliable recipes using that ingredient and of course, links on where you can purchase the ingredient.
Many of the ingredients have YouTube video links showcasing how to use the spice or grow the herb or use it in a dish. This application is a one-stop shop for all things spices. For less than a cup of gourmet coffee, you can get info on 129 spices! With the wonderful photography and detailed information on spices, iSpice is truly a 
masalamomma’s must-have app.
Check out your iTunes apple store for purchasing the iSpice app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ispice/id405625940?mt=8
About Monica Bhide:
Monica has been published in many major national and international publications, including Food & Wine, The New York Times, Parents, Cooking Light, Prevention, Health, SELF, Bon Appetit, Saveur, and many more. She is a contributing editor to the AARP magazine, writes a weekly syndicated for Scripps Howard Media called Seasonings and is a frequent contributor to NPR’s Kitchen Window. Her work has garnered numerous accolades, including her food essays being included in Best Food Writing anthologies (2005, 2009 and 2010). Her highly praised first cookbook, The Spice Is Right: Easy Indian Cooking for Today (Callawind Publications, 2001) is a collection of mouth-watering menus tempered with her up-to-date touches on classic Indian recipes
. Monica’s newest cookbook, The Everything Indian Cookbook: 300 Tantalizing Recipes–From Sizzling Tandoori Chicken to Fiery Lamb Vindaloo (Everything Series) was released in May 2004. Her third book- Modern Spice (Simon & Schuster, 2009 has a foreword by Mark Bittman) and was recently released in India by Random House and has a foreword by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor. Born in India, Monica moved to the United States in 1991. She has an engineering degree from Bangalore University and two masters: one in information systems technology from George Washington University and the other in Industrial Systems management from Lynchburg College. She currently resides in the Washington, D.C. metro area, with her husband and young sons.
For more on Monica: www.monicabhide.com
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I love to cook, and this is such an awesome app! I just downloaded it after reading this article. Thanks for posting 🙂