FINDING FOOD IDEAS ON THE WEB

Hungry? The Internet is a great resource for cooking ideas and recipes.

I am one of those chef wannabes. Hey, it looks so easy if you're watching the Food Channel on cable. Of course, if I started yelling "bam" like Chef Emeril it might frighten my family away.

www.foodtv.com

Actually, the Food Channel has a great Web site, where you can learn more about both the cooks and the recipes. Can you believe it? Fondue is back.

You'll be glad to know that while fondue is back, that doesn't include those dull parties serving nothing but fondue. You can check out the list of Fon-Do and Fon-Don'ts.

FoodTV.com offers a database of more than 11,500 recipes. You can also view technique videos, look up terms in the culinary encyclopedia, find entertaining tips, and get personalized wine recommendations.

Of course, you can also learn more about the Food Channel and its wide array of celebrity hosts. Emeril Lagasse actually has two shows on the Food Channel: "Emeril Live" and "The Essence of Emeril." He demonstrates gourmet cooking with a bam! If you view the show schedules, it links to the recipes -- and that includes a printer-friendly version. Perhaps I'll drop by the fan forum.

I found it interesting that some of the recipes were tagged: "Available for a limited time only." That means they'll only be on the site about two weeks -- before they end up in a cookbook, no doubt. The site encourages you to print them out and keep track of them.

I also liked the Ingredient Substitution help this site provides, along with the advanced recipe and menu searches. The site also offers recipes and menus of the day and ideas for quick dinners.

My friend, Dee Dee Wilson, suggested the next great site to me. Thanks! Her favorite part of The Kitchen Link is the more than 9,900 copycat recipes.

www.kitchenlink.com

In other words, if you're dying to try those cheesy biscuits from Brand X at home or that tasty salad from you-know-who, this is a great place to get an approximate recipe. Most are not from the restaurants, but I've tried a few copycats at home and they're pretty good.

Kitchen Link bills itself as "Your Guide to What's Cooking on the Net." They have a master index to more than 10,000 food and cooking links. That's quite impressive. The site has a number of "Best of Web" for food sites for its massive collection of food-related links.

The site also offers more than 120,000 recipes that you can search, along with 28 separate message boards.

You can also jump off to the original CopyKat site for more recipes.

www.copykat.com

CopyKat Recipes says if you've tried it in a restaurant, you can make it at home with advice of this site. Of course, you won't have the restaurant ambiance.

You can search for the recipes by category or alphabetically. You can also try a keyword search of the recipes. CopyKat boasts that it "reveals the secrets of giants like Boston Market, Olive Garden and Bennigan's." They also have a couple of other interesting categories including: "You've Gotta Try This," which are good home-cooked meals.

They also have several forums including Recipe Requests, Favorite Recipes, Favorite Restaurants, Lost and Found and CopyKat Chat.

soar.berkeley.edu/recipes

Many people enjoy newsgroups for chat and ideas. A recipe sharing Usenet newsgroups served as the basis for SOAR, the searchable online archive of recipes. You can browse through more than 70,000 recipes by keyword search or through categories.

This database was put together by the folks at Berkeley University.

What I found interesting about this site is you can view recipes by different regions or ethnic groups, such as Lebanese, Moroccan, Eskimo or Russian foods. In all, there are more than 60 countries or regions to choose from.

It's nothing fancy to look at, but there's plenty of recipes for every taste. If you're really looking for food oddities, check out the miscellaneous category with such categories as extraterrestrial and bizarre, medieval and food humor. Yikes.

www.topsecretrecipes.com

Another interesting food site I found is called Top Secret Recipes. This site too offers recipes and advice on creating clones of America's favorite brand-name foods. There's an archive of recipes and the featured on changes each week. Today's featured recipe: Snapple Raspberry Iced Tea.

This is the guy who has more than 1 million Top Secret Recipes books in print. The difference with his recipes is that he has tested them in the kitchen.

You'll find oodles of original clone recipes, insider secrets, food lore and community message boards at this site. The archive features recipes from 1996 to date. Ooh, here's one for the Oriental chicken salad that I love at a local restaurant.

You can click for a "printer-friendly" version of the recipe or e-mail the recipe to a friend.

These recipes include not only restaurants, but also fast-food joints and snacks you buy in the supermarket.

If you want to learn more about the Top Secret Recipe TV appearances, you can watch streaming video for TV appearances or streaming audio for radio time.

Here's another interesting cooking site I found with a strange name: Caf Creosote.

www.cafecreosote.com

However, since the folks at "About" recommend it, I'll give this site the benefit of the doubt.

The site features a cooking guide, recipes and dictionary. You can also look at the viewer's Top 10 list.

You can also take a look at the featured recipe or new recipes. You can search by categories or keywords.

In addition to the recipes, I also liked such categories as "emergency substitutions" and "freezing guide." There are also tips on measurement equivalents and lowfat equivalents. You can also search recipes by the main ingredient.

The list of cooking and recipe sites goes on and on. What's your favorite food site on the Internet? E-mail me at jonia@sehosp.org. See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams is the Webmaster at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau, www.southeastmissourihospital.com.