Meet Tender: The Tinder For Food
In Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari writes that today's technology, what with OKCupid and Tinder, has given us a number of options in the dating world. Now three Boston natives are opening up a wide world of dinner options with an app appropriately called Tender. Ansari had no part in the creation of the app, although it wouldn't surprise us if he had since his undying love for food made recurring appearances in his book.
Set up very much like Tinder, you can swipe right on recipes that appeal to you and left for those that fall flat. Approved dishes are then saved in a "cookbook" that acts as a sort of recipe collector. Recipe profiles link back to where the dish was originally posted, such as Food52. Filters are available if you're feeling like you only want desserts, chicken, drinks or even vegan dishes.
Jordan Homan, one of the three creators of the app, tells Boston.com that the app is a way for millennials to avoid eating out so often.
"As a twentysomething, we are all constantly combating the impulse to just eat out or pick something up," Homan says. "But Tender gets you psyched about the prospect of making food, and it makes it easy to do so."
There are plenty of pros to Tender: finding recipes at your leisure; not having to engage in small talk with these recipes; every swipe is a match. The only con? It's a total distraction. I spent a healthy 15 minutes swiping through recipes when I should have been writing this. So if you haven't already gotten into the swiping-app game, perhaps this one will change your mind.