h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The days of the food network being useful are over. In the early days, the chefs would cook and teach about the food. We always learned something watching Emeril.

Then the chefs began competing with each other, Iron Chef and so on.

Now all those chefs who competed are now judges for the competitions of home cooks. Chopped and the Cake wars are the most useless for me. Tonight, a Chopped basket contained a huge gummy worm and other ingredients. I have no use for a gummy worm in the kitchen. PBS has more useful cooking shows including Nigella's At My Table and Giada.

I will always love Julia Child. When the Diet Police took her to task for using *gasp* butter and eggs and cream, she said, "Most doctors feel that it's okay to eat a little of everything."

I have 'The Way to Cook' and 'Baking with Julia' both are great cook books.

I have a lot of cook books, Ancient, vintage, British, Louisiana, brand name (Tabasco, Hershey, Nestle, Gourmet Magazine, Southern Living, Betty Crocker etc. ) and others. I have a full set of 1970s Betty Crocker recipe cards in a lime green box. Bought it at a friend's garage sale for all of 2.00.

I have 'Clementine in the Kitchen' and three other books by Samuel Chamberlain. They are a blend of food writing, history and recipes.

I've been collecting recipes and cookbooks for more than 40 years. There are Chinese and Indian cookbooks on my shelf. I have "Joy of cooking," plus several one-dish meal cookbooks. As I live along, it would seem unduly fussy to cook several different dishes for one meal. What I do is make a one-dish meal, with enough for four meals. I eat one meal then and there, and store the other three in the refrigerator until I get around to eating them.

I have clipped recipes out of the paper and magazines since 1977. Now, I copy or save them online. I have found some interesting vintage recipes online. allrecipes.com and tasteofhome.com have recipes that are doable instead of all instant mixes or too intricate to make at home. I also collect cook books. My favorite to read is the ''Larousse Gastronomique'' (in English).

I've looked things up in Larousse gastronomique from time to time.

The thing about getting four meals from everything I cook is that the food has to be exceptional so I don't get tired of it by the fourth time I have it. I look for recipes that have interesting mixtures of herbs and spices. Paul Prudhomme developed some recipes that I adore. I don't add as much fat or spicy pepper as he does, but they still work fine for my purposes.

When I managed the store kitchen, we started the process of 1 base ingredient (usually beans) used in more than one way.

Red beans for rice and beans, some put in the freezer. Two days later black beans, one bowl for the black bean burgers, some put in freezer. Following week, navy beans: beans on rice for lunch, remainder for 3 bean chili with the beans in the freezer. The base for gumbo and the base for creole were the same until seasoning. Make a double batch of roux, put half in the refrigerator for the other dish.

Rice was another multiple ingredient: Rice and beans, rice with the gumbo and rice pudding. We even mixed rice and pumpkin seeds for burgers.

I have at least 8 different kinds of dried beans in my cupboard. I make a mean 8-bean soup.

Sounds good. It is definitely soup weather.

Amen to that!

I found some cooking videos online. One of which was about hot chocolate, not cocoa. The chef is French, but his narration is in English with an accent. One of the comments was ''I could listen to him say 'chocolat' all day.''.

"The days of the food network being useful are over."

What a coincidence! I've just started reading "medium raw" by Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain says exactly the same thing.

Did he elaborate on why he feels that way?

I can see the entertainment factor for some people.

We used to watch Emeril and Alton Brown and others to A. learn about other types of food and the history of them. B. Learn better methods to prep and execute the cooking processes. C. Be more up to date than say, our cookbooks.

Do you remember 'Unwrapped'?

No, I don't.

''Unwrapped'': A food item would be chosen. Then for an hour, the origins, manufacture and details of that item would be delved into. Cracker Jacks, hot dogs, M&Ms (and other Mars candies) and so on. Not cooking, but educational.

Now, it's all about showing off, blowing a gasket, having a meltdown or worse (catching something on fire). There is a show where the worst cooks they could find compete against each other.

I learned a lot about cooking from Graham Kerr, Justin Wilson, Jeff Smith, and Emeril by watching their televison shows.

I've picked up cooking tips from all over, maybe all over the world. When I came back from a trip to Taiwan, the first thing I did was try to learn to make dim sum. Well, the results were mixed. The stuff ended up with was tasty enough, but it sure didn't look or taste like the wonderful shop around the block from my hotel in Hong Kong.

When I got back the Goulash Archipelago (Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, where goulash was omnipresent whenever I ate out), I made (surprise!) goulash. Not bad, but it's not something I would go out of my way to make.

My trip to Italy yielded the longest-lasting benefits. I became fascinated by the concept of a five-course Italian meal. Every Saturday for the next two years, I made a five-course meal along Italian lines. I sampled each of the five dishes on Saturday, and lived off the leftovers for days thereafter.

My trip to Latvia, Estonia, and St Petersburg didn't have much effect on me, though. The pickled pumpkin chunks in Tallinn were okay, but I had no desire to make the recipe myself.

That's a lot of traveling.

I like that you were inspired by your travels.

Out of curiosity, were the pumpkin chunks pickled in salt or vinegar? Not that I want to try that, just asking.

I was watching cooking shows before I started first grade. The Galloping Gourmet was one of them because it aired at 8 a.m. just after Sesame Street.

The simple sets of Justin Wilson's, John Folse's, and Jeff Smith's shows didn't make them less useful and educational. But, I kind of feel that the elaborate sets and focus on competition is defeating the purpose. I have learned more about and other foods from h2g2 (and the people here) and cook books.