Rachael Ray promises ‘tasty bytes’ with new iPhone food shopping app

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Rachael Ray launches iPhone food shopping app

Now you can get things “Yum-o” to go.

Rachael Ray, best-selling cookbook author and TV personality, has a new Apple Inc. iPhone application, “Tasty Bytes,” that combines recipes and cooking tips with a shopping tool aimed at getting you down the aisles faster.

The app, which launches Monday, includes 200 recipes and a shopping function that tallies ingredients and amounts from selected recipes into one list.

In an e-mail, Ray said she decided to develop the app for convenience, her own as well as others.

“When I head to the grocery store, I know what meals I want to make for the week and I buy ingredients based on those recipes. Sometimes I bring my own cookbook to the market and feel silly carrying a book around with my head on it,” she said. “I figured why not create a recipe database that was portable and mobile, so I could provide busy cooks, including myself, with a simple way to search through tons of recipes and be able to shop for ingredients in the fastest way possible.”

Ray isn’t the only cooking celebrity with an appetite for the digital life. She joins a food phone force that includes Martha Stewart, Tyler Florence and Jamie Oliver.

The new Ray iPhone app isn’t her only dip into the digital world. She also plans to post regularly on Twitter as (at)rachael_ray. “Pretty creative, huh?” she joked.

Tasty Bytes recipes and shopping lists can be e-mailed to users for backup. The recipe database, which includes 30 recipes exclusive to the app, is searchable by meal type, holidays, cooking style and ingredients.

You also can work backward, choosing ingredients, meal types and cooking styles to find a recipe that fits what you’re in the mood to eat.

The app, developed by Threshold Interactive in Culver City, Calif., costs $1.99.