However, the “kitchen of the future” could provide even better support for chefs by supplementing ebook readers with wall screens and projections. The IEEE Spectrum has a collection of pictures that depict a variety of projection systems and interaction styles. For example the Microsoft Surface research might yield a system that would be useful in the kitchen.

An ebook screen is, in a sense, a narrow portal to information and sometimes a capacious portal is superior. When portability is not needed a large screen can be deployed.

I considered trying to put one out on kindle, but I thought the formatting would be a nightmare, and the small screen won’t allow you to see ingredients and instructions on one page.

And you bring up another good point – it would require a lot of anchor tagging to make it user friendly. Bummer.

My big dream (well, one of many) would be a combo searchable recipe database that could link up to your in stock pantry AND keep track of what you have on hand. You take it to the store with you and scan the items as you buy — your magic recipe iphone app will tell you what you can prepare with what you have, as well as what you need to get from store. Plus all in color. So, Liza needs to get to work on that pronto!!
In the meantime I think she did a fabulous job with the “Cook’s Illustrated” Kindle book, and I’m really enjoying using it.

I’m more concerned that we need a waterproof ebook reader because, given the number of stains on my paper recipe books, an electronic reader wouldn’t last long in the kitchen.

Otherwise I don’t see how any ebook on the readers, where you’d need to flip around, have two pages readily available at the same time, or have nice readable diagrams, would work. They’re too small, color impaired, and way too slow. Basically, I think they’re good for reading novels – begin at page one and go through page by page to the end. They’re too slow for anything else.