laptops in the kitchen

Photo Courtesy of Craig Cillitoe/Sydney Morning Herald

I can remember a time--not that long ago--where the thought of a laptop in my kitchen seemed akin to installing a dj station in the corner. Why would I put such expensive technology in a space where I chopped, stirred, boiled, and baked? Surely I'd just wreck the poor thing when it took an unexpected plunge in the sink. Danger seemed to lurk in every corner, and my laptop stayed banished to the more serene sections of the house.

No longer.

While I don't haul pigs across my kitchen like the lad photographed above, I do hunch over my laptop on the kitchen counter like the other lad in the photo, looking up just how many teaspoons of lemon juice a recipe needs, or what temperature I should set the oven for. But it doesn't stop at just cooking. The laptop is my yellow pages, my calendar, my mobile work station, and my megaphone, so when I head to the kitchen, the laptop comes with me.

As many of our lives become more digital, behaviors adjust. Which is what is going on in the photo above, which ran in the Sydney Morning Herald as part of an article on how technology is impacting the food industry--both producers and consumers. Chefs now tweet with the best of them, reservation systems migrate online, and as this particular article reports, restaurants are now uploading their wine lists for tablet technology as a way of engaging customers in new ways and deepening the relationship they have to a restaurant.

While some argue that technology has diminished the personal touch--and in some realms I would agree this is true--in other areas like the restaurant industry, it has expanded the access and experience.