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The best food Web site on the planet

© Sarah White

OK, I'll admit it: I'm completely obsessed with Food Network. I can't help myself. Whenever I turn it on, I'm hooked and I find it hard to turn away.

I discovered the channel devoted to all things food when I lived in Oklahoma City a few years ago. I would watch it for hours on end when I was alone in my apartment, actually not doing much cooking. We now have a satellite dish because the town where I live does not offer this fabulous, educational and fun channel on cable and I just had to have it.

I love just about every program on this channel. Good Eats, Food 911 and Sara's Secrets have taught me about the art and science of cooking, inspired me to try new things and most of all made me hungry to immerse myself in the world of food. Whenever I'm looking for some entertaining noise while I'm working around the house (or cooking) I turn to Food Network, sometimes for hours at a stretch. It's entertaining, inspiring and delicious.

It seems only natural, then, that when I'm away from my television, have a food question or am looking for a recipe, the first place I usually turn is http://www.foodtv.com -- the Web site of the Food Network.

The site is simple and well organized, with the basic recipe search easily accessible in the top right corner of the page.

You can search for an ingredient, like broccoli or monkfish, or for a specific recipe, like oatmeal cookies. The searches of more than 23,000 recipes are quick, and, like most searches on the Internet, require proper syntax.

As an example, I am on an ongoing quest for the perfect recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese. The pinnacle of mac and cheese, to me, is Stouffers. It's the best thing you can eat that comes out of a box.

Sadly, it's also one of the few things that is better coming out of a box than when I or my husband try to make it at home. Most recipes I've tried some out too runny or too dry, or suffer the cardinal sin of not having enough cheese.

So I thought I'd search Foodtv.com and see what I could find. A search for macaroni and cheese gave me 33 results, including someone name Dunkley's 'famous' macaroni salad (which actually sounds pretty yummy despite not being what I was looking for) and recipes for ministrone, pasta with asparagus and a meatloaf recipe that appeared on the same show as macaroni and cheese.