So. You've stuck a seven inch Android tablet to your cupboard. What are you gonna do with it?
Well, the obvious thing is recipes and research off the Internet. Chrome is fine for that.
But let's say you have a bunch of episodes of Good Eats residing in your basement, in some kind of network-accessible storage. What if you want to cook along with Alton as he prepares Eggs Woodhouse? Well, you'll need two programs and five bucks, because Android, that's why.
MediaHouse is a free DLNA streamer that works with any number of video players, including the tablet's built-in video player. If, however, your video is in a variety of formats, you'll need something more robust for playback. The one I found that actually works is VPlayer, which I thought was free until the trial period expired, and is instead five bucks. Maddeningly, the awesome all-in-one streaming and playing program I use on my GoogleTV boxes doesn't work on tablets.
There is a version of the pretty good Epicurious app for Android, but it doesn't support landscape mode, so fuck it. There are a number of kitchen timer apps and widgets - I settled on Chef's Kitchen Timer for the feature set and general freeness. It's utilitarian.
And then Evernote. Evernote, despite its shitty interface, is ideal for my needs here. Use the last of a spice? Jot it down in Evernote. Next time you're at the spice store? Pull it up on the iPad's Evernote and you're good to go. Same with recipe notes for here. I can jot them down on the tablet as I work, then have them ready on the iPad when it's time to write up a post. You'll see the fruits of that shortly.
And then there's general entertainment stuff. Netflix, Pandora, Podkicker, and TuneSync let me get movies, Internet radio, podcasts, and my iTunes library on the kitchen tablet, although TuneSync is fucking awful despite being the best one I could find. All helpful during bouts of kitchen chores.
But the best aspect,and why I'd recommend a Nexus 7 or other pure Jelly Bean tablet, is the widgets. You can set up a screen or screens with live updating widgets and program launch icons as a home screen. For mine, I have a clock, Google Calendar, Pandora, Weather Channel, GMail, and icons for Evernote, Evernote voice memo, Podkicker, setting up a new countdown timer, Chrome, and Tunesync, plus regular launch icons on the side for MediaHouse, Netflix, Settings, and the Play Store.
I've also enabled developer options, which is a thing you can google, and that lets me toggle a setting that keeps the tablet awake as long as it's plugged in, so that way it won't go to the lock screen if I'm in the kitchen and don't touch it for 30 minutes (the maximum setting allowed in regular options).
I'm just beginning to explore the possibilities, and as I come up with more things to do with it and more or better Android solutions to do those things, I'll keep you informed.