Guide to using Nourishing Traditions on the Kindle

Nourishing Traditions recipe with the note symbol on the right

Did you realize that there is a Kindle version of the Nourishing Traditions cookbook?  I of course have the hard copy, which is great.  But I have had a Kindle since it first came out two years ago, and I love it! I was wary about how a cookbook would ‘read’ on the Kindle, but I was surprised with how accessible all of the information is.  And I can take it with me anywhere.

For all of the readers of this blog that have the Kindle, I would like to inspire you to invest in the Kindle edition of Nourishing Traditions, it’s only $9.99.  I will also start noting the ‘Kindle location’ of each recipe that I review on this blog (this is the Kindle equivalent of the page #).

Here are the 6 features of the Kindle that are great for reading Nourishing Traditions (and really any other book too).  Please note that in the pictures I have the 1st generation Kindle, and also any instructions are based on that Kindle.  The 2nd generation which is for sale now at Amazon is an even better design.

I found my date/nut cookie recipe, 4 results down

Searching

I can search for ‘lamb’ and find every recipe with lamb in the book quicker than I could look in the index in a hardcopy book.  Or any reference to ‘lamb’ in the text, very cool. If I search for ‘medjool dates’ the Kindle will also give me a choice to search in the book or on the web.

The best thing about the Kindle edition are the links!  Many times in the NT cookbook, a recipe includes an ingredient that is also a recipe in the book.  With the Kindle edition, these are linked together so that you can jump between the recipes.  Very handy!

Great for reading the ‘content’

In Nourishing Traditions, there is a lot of text; it’s like a nutrition and health book inside of a cookbook.  So the Kindle edition actually works well because there is a lot of content in the book that are not recipes.  This works well for the kitchen or when you’re waiting at the doctor’s office.

Recipes that I've bookmarked in NT

Bookmarks

This is probably my favorite feature… bookmarks!  I can bookmark every recipe that I really like and I want to go back to.  Doing this in a real book would be messy, but in the Kindle it’s easy.  Just go to the recipe that you want and pick ‘add bookmark’ from the main menu.  To access your bookmarks in the specific book, just pick ‘Go To Bookmark…’  It will then display a page with all of the recipes that you’ve bookmarked.

You can ‘make notes’ in the margins

Just as you can scribble your notes in your hardcopy version of NT, you can do the same thing with the Kindle version.  Kind of!  You can either ‘highlight’ text or make notes with the Kindle keyboard.  Just go to anywhere in the text with the scroll button and choose ‘Add Highlight…’ or ‘Add Note’.  If you add a note, there is a little piece of paper symbol next to the recipe so that in the future you know to read it (see first picture above).

Text to Speech Feature

In the 2nd generation Kindle, there is an option to have the Kindle read the text to you. You can also stop it and back it up easily (as in repeating a recipe). This is a great feature, especially for the text portions of NT. I admit that I haven’t used this on my Kindle since I have 1st generation, but DH has the new one and has used this feature with books.

LARGE text for reading in the kitchen while cooking!

LARGE or small text

No matter how well or terrible your eyes are, the Kindle will help you out!  There are six sizes of text to choose from, I have selected the largest in the picture.  This is a great feature for having the Kindle in the kitchen with you, much easier to read the recipes while cooking!

Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, large text, nourishing traditions, NT Kindle edition, text to speech