I love cookbooks with hard covers and worn pages, but I’ve come to realize there is a place for my smartphone in the kitchen. No, a phone application probably can’t offer the coffee cake recipe that made your mom famous among your middle school friends, but it can make cooking easier in other ways.

Enter Kitchen Calculator, an iPhone app that takes care of all your kitchen math. Whether you’re converting units from grams to cups or cutting a recipe in thirds, this app will ease the headache.

Another favorite is the Pair It! guide to bringing food and wine together. Created by Sonoma County wine pairing expert Bruce Riezenman, the app offers pairing advice for more than 180 grape varietals, as well as a food library of more than 1,000 dishes. It also includes a wealth of information about each grape, including tasting notes and origin. Also, the “Quick Pair” recommendations are easy to use when dining out.

Droid users are later to the app game, but new, useful tools are popping up. One is Mighty Grocery, a shopping list with voice recognition and a database of hundreds of items to chose from quickly. You can also use it to track prices and quantities on your list, and you can organize by store or by the event you’re cooking for.

After all the thinking and organizing is done for you, just turn on some music, roll up your sleeves and start cooking.