Now this is what the Internet and Web 2.0 is all about. Using the community at large to build content that improves all our lives. BigOven is an established homegrown recipe-sharing web site that now has this slick iPhone client, for easier access to recipes in the kitchen – just prop the iPhone up on the counter and cook away. With a web-synced system of favourites and ‘try soon’ recipes, BigOven is just about all you need in this genre on both desktop and phone.

With over 160,000 recipes and counting, a great many of which are battle tested in the family kitchen and submitted by BigOven users, there’s plenty for everybody in the main recipe database. It’s easiest to start by searching for something, either a recipe name or an ingredient, to browse the matches and to ‘follow your nose’ through the web-like hyperlinks that bind BigOven together. Forward and back icons behave exactly as in a web browser, while a glossary of cooking terms and ingredients is only ever a tap away.

To get the most out of BigOven, you need to register for free on the main web site, after which you can mark recipes as either favourites (always remembered) or ‘try soons’ (remembered for a month, while you make up your mind about whether to make them), with the recipes also being marked on the BigOven web site. You can access this from within the application or, of course, from your PC or Mac. There’s evenprovision for uploading your own recipes for others to enjoy.

It’s hard to find much wrong with BigOven, but its search engine did fail to find results several times when there were actually obvious matches, plus the web site doesn’t support all browsers. And, if I’m being really picky, some of the recipes are ambiguous, at least from an international perspective, with no clarification for people who want to work in metric units (grammes, litres, etc.)

With BigOven being a labour of love by its creator, there’s no danger of the system going away and it’s highly recommended as a cornerstone in your kitchen. At the moment it’s free but with occasional banner ads, but may switch to a commercial, ad-less model in the future.