Additionally, digital cookbook organization of My Cookbook is now enhanced with PDF support for recipes imported into the app from Evernote, and new international recipe content is now available to users in Korea and Taiwan. These updates make My Cookbook an even better cooking companion. Android users, be sure to check out the new version of Evernote Food for Android, which includes many of these features.

Other updates to Evernote Food for iOS give a boost to the Restaurants section. Foursquare venue ratings are now available in list view, meaning that anytime you want to eat out, you can quickly scan ratings and other essential info for each restaurant on your list, rather than having to tap each spot individually to see the details. Improved search for restaurants also yields greater accuracy for nearby places and search results.

Lastly, if you’re not already an Evernote Premium user, you can now upgrade within the app, giving you faster support, all the storage you need for your recipes, restaurants, and meals, and many more benefits across the whole collection of Evernote apps.

Want to learn more about Evernote Food? Check out the following blog posts:

Sync Your Recipes to Evernote Food
Build a Restaurant Wish List
Build Your Own Cookbook
Chronicle Your Culinary Adventures

Don’t have Evernote Food?

Download Evernote Food for iOS
Download Evernote Food for Android

With Mother’s Day around the corner, you might be thinking of ways to pay tribute to that fabulous lady in your life. Today, we’d like to give you a few tips for planning a Mother’s Day Brunch with Evernote.

1. Start capturing recipes. As you come across recipes you might want to make, clip them to your Evernote account using the Evernote Web Clipper. Download Evernote Food and use the Explore Recipes search feature to browse recipes from your favorite blogs and websites, then clip them to your Evernote Food cookbook. BONUS: if you use Evernote Food, the recipes you save within the app and in Evernote will show up in your Evernote Food cookbook.
2. Plan your menu. Scroll through your clipped recipes in Evernote or Evernote Food, then select the top 3-4 that you’ll want to prepare. Create a New Note in your Evernote account with your Mother’s Day Brunch menu. BONUS: Add Note Links to recipes in your menu to quickly jump to them inside your Evernote account.
3. Create a shopping/ grocery list. Create a checklist of items needed to make your brunch a success. As you purchase items, check them off on your mobile phone (remember: Evernote syncs your notes across all of your devices, so any checked items will be reflected in Evernote, everywhere).
4. Don’t forget the flowers. Clip a few bouquets/floral arrangements you see online using the Evernote Web Clipper. View arrangements side by side in Evernote on your desktop, then click on the source URL of the note displaying the arrangement you’d like to order. Place your order and clip your order summary right back into your Evernote account using the Web Clipper or Evernote Clearly, our app for enjoying a better reading experience online.
5. Skip the brunch, take her out! Don’t know how to cook, or have a great space for hosting your Mother’s Day Brunch? Treat her to a fabulous meal out. Use Evernote Food to peruse restaurants, and book your table using the OpenTable integration.

Evernote and Evernote Food can not only help you get organized around planning your brunch, but also capture invaluable memories so don’t forget to snap photos of your mom, the food you prepare and eat, and any other special touches and items you’d like to remember from the day.

Want more ideas for using Evernote to plan an event? Check out some of our other tips.

Find the recipe featured in the Web Clip above on the West Elm blog.

Getting ready for baby with Evernote

Planning for the arrival of a new baby is exhilarating, stressful, and overwhelming…all at the same time. There are registries to create, nurseries to decorate, pediatricians to select, books to read, and hospital bags to pack. If you’re getting ready for the arrival of a little one here are some ways Evernote can help.

1. Create a ‘Baby’ notebook and share it with your spouse, partner, or supportive family member/friend. Save everything baby-related to this notebook so you have a comprehensive place of reference that you can access from any device or computer and that both of you can update.

2. Keep track of advice and recommendations. You’re going to get a lot of advice from all sorts of people about everything from how best to raise your baby to what laundry detergent you should use. When you receive advice you think might come in handy, drop it into a note. Remember: you can capture notes when you’re at your desktop, as well as with your mobile phone or tablet.

3. Start creating your registry. Download the Evernote Web Clipper and start clipping baby products you like, reviews for strollers and car seats, etc. There are lots of great resources out there; clip blog posts such as this and this that can help you figure out what items you should register for. Once you’re ready to register, remember that all of your Web Clips will include the source URL so can immediately add products to your registry (I used MyRegistry.com, which allowed me to add products from multiple websites into one location).

4. Record memorable milestones. When was the first time you felt the baby kick or had a contraction? Use Evernote to record milestones throughout your pregnancy and keep this habit going after the baby is born.

5. Document your doctor’s appointments. Come prepared for every doctor’s appointment. Create a list of questions you’d like to ask your doctor in Evernote so you don’t forget them when you’re on the spot. Jot down your doctor’s tips and advice, as well as any important updates related to your progress.

6. Capture inspiration for your nursery. Snap photos of decorations and products in-store and use the Web Clipper to capture ideas for furniture, DIY projects and storage solutions. You can visually scan through all of your nursery decorating ideas if you create a tag for your nursery inspiration and search for all notes containing that tag.

7. Save important documents. You’ll be inundated with documents throughout your pregnancy — from doctor’s bills to sonograms, you’ll want to scan everything to your Evernote account so you don’t have to find yourself searching for your insurance information or important phone numbers in scattered corners around your house, your bag, and in your nightstand.

8. Don’t forget to thank your support system. Create a checklist of people to thank for baby shower gifts, cards, and support. You’ll be busy, but Evernote can help you make sure you don’t forget about the people who matter.

9. Pack your hospital bag. Create a checklist for everything you’ll need for your hospital bag. Reference it when you’re out shopping and check off items as you purchase them (your updates will sync to Evernote everywhere you have it installed). Need to double check you have everything before you rush out the door? Pull up your list on your phone.

10. Keep frequently-referenced information handy. Want to know what fish you can and shouldn’t eat while you’re pregnant? Save frequently-referenced information in Evernote and find it by doing a quick keyword search. I used American Pregnancy Association’s breakdown of mercury levels in fish to remind myself what I should avoid at restaurants.

11. Track your eating habits. Download Evernote Food to your iPhone, Android, and/or iPad and use it to keep track of what you’re eating throughout your pregnancy. Adjust your habits accordingly if you feel that you’re not eating enough nutritious foods.

12. Prepare yourself for the big day. Forward your hospital registration information from your inbox to your Evernote account using your Evernote email, create a note with important contact phone numbers, insurance information and your pediatrician, and save your birth plan in Evernote.

Are you expecting? How are you using Evernote to help you get ready? We’d love to hear in the comments! Also, be sure to follow Parenting Ambassador Carley Knobloch for more tips about ways to use Evernote for Parenting.

Get Evernote Food 2.0 on Google Play »

From Home Cooking to Haute Cuisine: The Essential App for Food Lovers

Like Evernote, Evernote Food was designed not just as a tool to help organize your life, but as an essential companion to inspire and capture the milestones along the way. Evernote Food is divided into four sections (Explore Recipes, My Cookbook, Restaurants, and My Meals) that together form an ever-evolving chronicle of your life in food. From exploring new recipes to curating your own digital cookbook, keeping a journal or planning a trip to a faraway place, Evernote Food gives you the tools to pursue and document your food passions.

Explore Recipes: Browse and Search Thousands of Recipes

Picture this: it’s a gorgeous spring morning and you’re at the farmers market. A bounty of seasonal fruits and vegetables surrounds you, generating equal parts inspiration and overwhelm. What to choose? Evernote Food’s Explore Recipes section has your back. Heirloom tomatoes in season? Just search by ingredient and see recipes from a broad array of the best food blogs and sites. Whether you’re out and about or relaxing at home, just open the app on your phone or tablet to see thousands of recipes from the best food blogs and sites to browse, search, and save. Tap any recipe that strikes your fancy. If you like what you see, tap the elephant icon at the top right of the screen to clip it to the My Cookbook section.

My Cookbook: Your Beautiful Digital Recipe Collection

If you love to cook, recipe collecting can be kind of a scattered process. You constantly find recipes from a variety of seemingly incompatible sources: online, in print, and much-loved 3×5 cards from mom’s or grandma’s recipe box. If you don’t have a system, it’s challenging to navigate your options, much less choose a recipe or plan a meal. This is where Evernote and Evernote Food can make your cooking life a whole lot easier – and make you a better cook in the process.

Recipe Collecting Made Easy
If you’ve been using Evernote to store recipes, you likely have recipes in different formats: ones you’ve scanned or photographed, those you’ve manually typed into a note, and recipes you’ve clipped using the desktop Web Clipper. Evernote Food recognizes these as recipes and will automatically bring them into your digital cookbook. Just tap My Cookbook in the app, then scroll to find the recipes you’ve saved in Evernote Food and Evernote. Tap a recipe and you’re ready to get cooking.

Your Cooking Companion
One big benefit of Evernote is that it automatically syncs your notes across all of your devices. This means that if you’ve been using your Android tablet to clip recipes for a special dinner, you can then take your phone to the grocery store use the recipe’s ingredient list to shop. When you’ve returned home, use your tablet to follow along with the recipe as you cook, capturing photos and notes in the app using the My Meals feature during the process.

Restaurants: Build a Wish List, Book a Table

Like My Cookbook, the Restaurants feature allows you collect all the restaurants you want to try in a tidy list ready to inform your next outing. Whether you want to experience a new hot spot or plan your food itinerary for an upcoming trip, Evernote Food lets you build your own ultimate restaurant wish list and book a table when you’re ready to dine.

Plan Your Next Food Adventure
Using the app to discover new restaurants is simple. Just tap the search field at the top of the screen and type in your search by name, cuisine, or dish. The app automatically searches near your current location. To search elsewhere, tap in the location field and enter another city anywhere in the world. In seconds, a list and map of restaurants for your search will appear along with colorful cuisine icons to help you scan for the type of meal you’re craving. Tap the map icon at the top right of the screen to see the locations displayed in map view, then tap the list icon to return to that view.

Select a Restaurant, Book a Table
When you see a restaurant that grabs your interest, tap it to see the details, including address, phone number, and website. Evernote Food also includes Foursquare venue ratings and menus. The icing on the cake? Evernote Food recently partnered with OpenTable to let you quickly book your table within the app.

My Meals: Create & Share Your Food Photo Essays

My Meals has been re-imagined to be better than ever. Use it to create gorgeous shareable photo essays documenting all of your food adventures, from the step-by-step process of baking a cake to capturing a birthday dinner out with friends. The interface for My Meals is easy to navigate, and it’s simple to either take photos in the moment or attach them from your device gallery to create a note later. The photos display right alongside your personalized captions for each image.

You can add a title and location to each meal, as well as a short description of the note. Go back and edit a note anytime to perfect it, from swapping out images to tweaking captions. When your note is finished, you’ll find the multiple sharing options available to Android users by tapping the overflow or options menu. From posting via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and more, the app lets you share the food you love with friends and family however you wish.

Recently Viewed: A Handy Reference

One feature exclusive to Android is the Recently Viewed feature. This feature displays alongside whatever section you are viewing and provides a constant reference point to the recipes you’ve been exploring and the meals you’ve been contemplating.

Discover, Collect, Remember the Food You Love

We can’t wait to hear what you think of the new Evernote Food for Android. Give it a try and tell us your impressions. Bon appetit!

What’s New in Evernote Food 2.0 for Android
Getting Started Guide
Facebook Page

Evernote Food is the perfect companion to not only help plan your trip, but to accompany you on the open road. Yes, half the joy is in discovering places along the way. But it’s also good to have a bit of a plan in place for when you arrive. With this in mind, today’s Quick Tip on how to use Evernote Food to assist in planning your food travels is right on time.

Don’t have Evernote Food 2.1? Download it for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch now ».

Let’s take a peek at this feature via my own upcoming trip to Nashville.

1. Set your location to the city you’ll be visiting in order to pull restaurant results from that location. Then, search for a restaurant. In the South, the cuisine is diverse, but neighborhood joints with fried food and meat & threes will always top my personal list.

2. Once the restaurant you want comes up in your search, tap the scissors icon at the top right of your screen to save it into your personalized list.

3. Repeat this step until all of the food spots you want to visit are on your list!

(Bonus tip: when you arrive at your destination, your smartphone or tablet will recognize your location and display the list of restaurants at your destination city at the top of your saved list.)

Want to learn more about Evernote Food? Check out the following blog posts:

Sync Your Recipes to Evernote Food
Build a Restaurant Wish List
Build Your Own Cookbook
Chronicle Your Culinary Adventures

For more information on using Evernote Food, check out our Evernote Food user guide and also stop by our Evernote Food Facebook page for regular tips.

Baked Strawberry Doughnuts. Photo credit: A Cozy Kitchen

Contributed post by Adrianna Adarme

The world of doughnuts is divided into two categories: cake and yeast. I’m going to embarrassingly admit that I haven’t yet mastered the light-as-a-feather homemade yeasted doughnut recipe (in the past they’ve been more like stiff-as-a-board). And while this reality saddens me daily, I do nothing about it, and it’s not because I don’t care about yeasted doughnuts, because I do. Oh I do. It’s because I despise deep-frying at home. Deep-frying requires lots of lots of oil and the worst part? Disposing it after your fry-fest. That’s why I adore baked doughnuts. These baked doughnuts are of the cake variety, but rather than having a firm, big crumb like most cake doughnuts, these are pillowy soft with a small crumb.

Add the recipe to Evernote Food

Don’t have Evernote Food 2.1? Download it for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch now »

Follow Along on the Blog & Connect with Us

Want more great spring tips from Evernote? Follow along with Spring Made Simple by searching for the tag Spring Made Simple on the blog.

Bio

Joelle Alcaidinho is a freelance writer and consultant who splits her time between New York City, London, and Sydney, Australia working with tech start-ups, educational institutions, and retail organizations. As a writer, she covers topics ranging from technology to travel (you can find some of her posts about Evernote on Apartment Therapy). In addition to writing, Joelle designs children’s knitware and consults on UI/UX design for mobile apps. “Without Evernote, I’d be lost,” she says.

I use Evernote, Everywhere:

• Mac
• iPad
• iPhone 5
• Nexus 7
• Galaxy Nexus
• Galaxy Note II
• Microsoft Surface Tablet

I use Evernote for juggling all my projects. Between my travels and the great number of things I have going on (writing, consulting, running my Etsy shop), I needed a tool that could be there with me at all times. Evernote is a place where I can store a lot of important content at the same time, and always be able to access it. I used to have tons of notebooks around for sketching and writing. Evernote has become my digital version of these notebooks.

I keep separate notebooks for all my projects. For example, I have notebooks for my writing for Apartment Therapy, my technology blog, my travel guides, as well as my Etsy store. Because I’m always working on multiple projects at any given time, being able to compartmentalize is vital. Evernote is a great place to store work-related documents, such as meeting and conference notes, as well as more creative things, like pictures of fabrics and yarn that I like, or inspiration for a baby hat. I also create a notebook for each city when working on a travel guide, which becomes the place I keep all the information about which restaurants I visit, maps (I use Skitch to annotate these), and other essentials that I will need when I later craft the guide entry for The Tech Bird.

I use Evernote to save my research. For Apartment Therapy, I cover tablet apps for Android, Windows 8, and iPad, and because I write about different platforms I often change mobile devices from week-to-week. Evernote is the one constant. Coming up with fresh ideas every week is exhausting, but with Evernote I’m able to keep track of interesting apps throughout the weeks so that when I’m ready to sit down and write I always have a starting point. I tag apps I come across with ’roundup ideas’  and also store various templates and HTML snippets in Evernote for handy reference. Half the work associated with preparing a blog post is done before I even begin writing!

I use Evernote on the go. In addition to my tech writing, I also do a lot of travel writing. When I’m working on a travel guide, I use Evernote to take photos of the signs of the places I visit, menus, and anything else I want to remember. My notes are all geo-tagged, so it’s easy to organize them and have all my notes associated with a certain location in the same place. I also snap photos of my receipts so I’ll remember what I ate and can easily submit expense reports.

I record interviews that I can replay later. When I am working with a client on a consulting project, I use Evernote to record conversations. Audio notes allow me to concentrate on the conversation I’m having, while also allowing me to revisit it later when I’m in brainstorm mode.

I’m able to achieve long-term goals. Evernote played a key role in helping me complete NanoWriMo last year. Before it began, I went into Evernote and was able to pull together a bunch of ideas I had been saving for a long time that were related to a novel I was hoping to write. Once NanoWriMo kicked off, I was already ahead of the game and was able to jump into writing. Evernote has been a huge help with my novel and I find the marriage between Evernote and Scrivener to be all kinds of awesome.

I’m able to be more creative by letting go of ideas. Evernote helps me compartmentalize ideas, which takes away the stress of having to remember them. Whenever an idea pops into my head, I always have a device handy. Evernote is consistent and accessible everywhere, so I can capture my thoughts and move on. The effect? I’m able to clear my mind and focus on other things; this gives me the freedom to be more creative. Once I save an idea in Evernote, I know I can mull the possibilities later. This is helpful both for creative and tactical projects. I’m able to stay on top of to-dos and also come back to ideas that I may not necessarily have an an immediate use for.

How do you use Evernote to organize your professional and personal lives? Share your stories in the comments!

Learn more about how to create a restaurant wish list in Evernote Food

Don’t have Evernote Food 2.1? Download it for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch now »

Here’s a quick rundown of how this feature works.

1. Open the Restaurants section in Evernote Food on your iPhone or iPad. Search for restaurants in a chosen destination and choose the one you want to try. From here, you can either add the restaurant to your Saved list or book a table right away.

2. Once you’ve selected a restaurant, you can review all the essential information you need prior to booking a table, including Foursquare venue ratings and even the menu. If you like what you see, tap ‘Make a reservation.’

3. From here, you’ll recognize the familiar OpenTable booking flow. Just select the date, time, and number of people you want a table for and confirm your reservation.

(Bonus tip: When you visit a restaurant, create a My Meals note to capture the highlights of the experience with photos and captions. To see all the spots you’ve visited, tap the My Meals tab in Restaurants. The restaurants you’ve visited that are associated with your My Meals notes will show up here.

Want to learn more about Evernote Food? Check out the following blog posts:

Sync Your Recipes to Evernote Food
Build a Restaurant Wish List
Build Your Own Cookbook
Chronicle Your Culinary Adventures

For more information on using Evernote Food, check out our Evernote Food user guide and also stop by our Evernote Food Facebook page for regular tips.

Erin Souder, Evernote Design Ambassador

Contributed post by Erin Souder

I just love decorating for spring. Around this time of year, I always find myself craving those little updates around the house that make it feel light, fresh, and lively. Making your own space look special for springtime doesn’t have to be a production – adding even a few pops of color here and there can make a huge difference in the mood of your house.

Here are a few of my favorite time-saving tips for making your spring decorating quick, simple, and attractive with the help of Evernote!

Evernote for Capturing Ideas

All winter long, I file away pretty floral brights or light, drapey warm-weather fabrics into my Evernote “Home Decor” notebook. I do this by adding photos of items I see in other homes that I adore, or, when I’m looking around online, I clip images from the web straight into my account with the Evernote Web Clipper.  If you want to learn more about the organization system I use once I clip and add all this content to Evernote, check out this post I wrote a little while back.

By going through this process of saving things I like when I see them, I don’t need to dedicate time to actively searching for ideas when I feel like doing a refresh – they’re all waiting for me in my Evernote account. When the first warm days start to approach, I browse through all of that inspiration to pick out the perfect mix of textures and colors that shout out spring!

Erin’s Spring Style Tips

Here are some of my go-to methods for bringing a little bit of the spring spirit indoors:

Vibrant, Breezy Brights. Trade those heavy afghans and fluffy sherpa pillows for light and silky throws and vivid, bright prints! Pick an item you love with a color that pops, and start adding complementary accessories and textures from there. I usually like to offset my colorful items with some earth tones to avoid that Easter-egg, bright-on-bright look. Hand towels, shower curtains, sheets, and bathroom rugs all get the switch for a crisp look throughout the house.

Lively Blooms. The last thing to signify that spring really is coming to life in your home is the addition of flowers – they give your home a fresh, inviting feel unlike any other accessory. I pick up tulips and other spring flowers from my local supermarket, then break down the bouquets into a few small and one large arrangement and place them in simple vases all over the house. This way, no matter what room you are in you can catch a whiff of the delicious scents of spring.

There, now isn’t that better? I hope your spring is full of beautiful brights and sweet smells!

Follow Along on the Blog & Connect with Us

Want more great spring tips from Evernote? Follow along with Spring Made Simple by searching for the tag Spring Made Simple on the blog, and all the great spring content we’ve got in store this season will populate. Each week we’ll be adding a number of special tips to kick your spring cleaning into high gear from our Ambassadors, delicious and easy Evernote Food recipes from notable chefs and restaurateurs, and tons more! You won’t want to miss out.

Do you have any great spring tips, ideas and recipes to share? Post your favorite spring cleaning tips, connect with others tackling new projects or just join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook. Follow @evernotelife and use the hashtag #evernotelife on Twitter throughout the spring season, and Like us on Facebook.

Learn more about how to build the ultimate online cookbook in Evernote Food

Don’t have Evernote Food 2.1? Download it for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch now ».

Let’s take a look at how the recipe sharing feature works.

1. Choose a recipe you’d like to share from your collection within My Cookbook.

2. After you’ve opened the recipe within the My Cookbook section of the app, tap the share button to choose a sharing option.

3. You can share recipes you’ve clipped to My Cookbook on Facebook or Twitter, via e-mail, or a link.

(Note: for recipes from publishers featured in Evernote Food, clicking the recipe always takes you to the recipe on the publisher’s site. For recipes you’ve imported from Evernote into Evernote Food, clicking the link will take you to the public URL you created in Evernote.).

4. You have full control over what you want to share through Evernote Food. If you want to share via Facebook and Twitter, tap ‘Connect’ to get sharing set up.

5. If you want to e-mail a recipe, select that option and a beautiful thumbnail of the recipe with the publisher’s branding will arrive in the recipient’s inbox. When they click on the recipe, they’ll be taken to the recipe on the publisher’s site.

6. That’s it! We hope you’ll enjoy finding new recipe inspiration and sharing it via Evernote Food.

Want to learn more about Evernote Food? Check out the following blog posts:

Sync Your Recipes to Evernote Food
Build a Restaurant Wish List
Build Your Own Cookbook
Chronicle Your Culinary Adventures

For more information on using Evernote Food, check out our Evernote Food user guide and also stop by our Evernote Food Facebook page for regular tips.