I had cable for a while and now watch it when I am home. I had FN on almost constantly. I loved the cooking shows, but most of the ones I love aren't being produced anymore. I still get a lot of recipes off the FoodNetwork Web site. My all time favorite Food Network cook to watch is Michael Chiarello, for so many reasons! I have tried some of his recipes, they are mostly good, but not ones I will come back to, most are too elaborate for single me in my tiny kitchen to pull off. But I can dream . . . As for Ina, I love watching her show, she clearly loves to cook and entertain. But I have NEVER made a single recipe of hers. They all start with, "Take a 1/2 lb. of butter . . . " Nothing wrong with that as far as cooking and taste is concerned. Butter makes everything taste good and is one of the secrets of French cooking. But I simply cannot eat or cook like that. This is not a criticism of Ina or her recipes, she is what she is and makes no apologies. But if the question is what recipes do I use, it would not be hers. But she is a great cook, so if you need a "reliable" recipe that will taste great, yes, Ina can do that. Butter is a reliable friend in the kitchen, that's for sure! :) I greatly enjoy Giada and Rachel's shows too. My experience with their recipes has been mixed--some are fantastic and some are not good at all. Being vegetarian there are only certain recipes of theirs I can make. As for Rachel, as I once heard Mario Batalli say, "This is how America cooks." Since so many of us are trying to pull together a meal quickly when coming home from work exhausted, I find her approach fun and inspiring, particularly for newer cooks. Two men whose recipes I often like are Bobby Flay and Tyler Florence. Most of Bobby's stuff I do not make since it is meat, but I find that the man has a real way with other ingredients too--he's a mean vegetarian cook. Tyler just seems to cook the kinds of things I like to eat--emphasis on Mediterannean flavors. Now, that said, my favorite cooking shows are on PBS, and these are ones I use VERY often for inspiration. My ALL TIME favorite is Lidia Bastianich. Her show comes on Saturdays and I cannot tell you how many times I have been inspired to make something after watching her show. I also love Sarah Moulton's show, "Weeknight Meals." She has great guests, and lots of good vegetarian fare. And MS Everyday Foods show often has a recipe I'm inspired to try. Nothing fancy, just great versions of the classics. I love watching Jacques Pepin of course, but have not made many of his dishes, again, mostly due to the meat issue. I enjoy the "America's Test Kitchen" show, but again, mostly meat, and the recipes I have tried have been OK, but the blather about these being special secret definitive ways to do things just doesn't wash in my experience. I have one of their cookbooks and nothing in it so far has been fantastic. I did have a pumpkin cheesecake at a friend's house from their recipe and it was by far the best I have ever had, in fact the ONLY recipe for that concoction that I have liked. Alton Brown is Too Much Information for me, although this is not a criticism. Again, I just don't cook that elaborately. I've also enjoyed Steven Raichlin or some such spelling, he has a barbecue show, but I don't barbecue. I like a lot of shows I don't cook from, like Rick Bayless' show, etc. But I just don't use their recipes. I think Emeril is really a very good chef, but like most of you, I find his recipes are just too fussy. But that's the way great chef's cook--it's the little extra steps and attention to detail that make their food so great. NOT my style though. I have to stick with simple things that still taste good for recipes I will actually use.

LG = Large Garbage. I dropped $2000 on a LG washer and dryer. The dryer had to be replaced within a week because the door gasket allowed air to escape making a whistling sound. It whistled while it worked, loud enough to hear at the other end of my house. The washer will not clean clothes well no matter what we do. Four service calls have been made, no one showed up for the fifth, and LG will not replace or make a refund. The problems? Not enough water and there is dirt and lint on top of the door glass after each use! LG said that there is no way there will be dirt or lint on the door glass. No matter what cycle we choose or what extras we add, all the water the machine adds is 5 gallons. (After a large load, I allowed the machine to drain into a 5 gallon plastic bucket after the wash and rinse cysles and it filled up the bucket once plus a little more in another.) LG customer service stated that for a large load, 13 gallons would be used and with their "Water Plus" feature, an extra 3 liters would be added. To top it all, the repairman who came out the first three times, told me my clothes were to dirty for the LG washer and that I needed to get a $50 trade-in to wash my blue jeans. He also told me that the dryer would require two cycles to dry completely. That he was right about. His advice also was to stop using liquid detergent and liquid softener because they gummed up the interior of the washer, use 1/2 of the recommended HE detergent and to start using dryer sheets. All are not recommended by the LG instruction manual. LG = Large Garbage. LG = AKA Gold Star. Save your money and find something else that really works. BTW The top loading 15 year old Whirlpool that was replaced by the LG was on its last legs before it was replaced. On its last day in my house, it did a better job of washing than the LG did on its first day. Save your money. There are better brands available!

the are the variety they are supposed to be, accurately stated as to GMO, organic, etc. Carefully grown and harvested to eliminate accidentally crossbreeding and/or mis-packaging. Assuming we are talking about tomato seeds on this forum then any company that labels theirs as GMO or non-GMO would be very misleading as there are none available and I'd be inclined to mistrust them about all their info. It is simply a label that isn't applicable to tomato seed. Most any reputable supplier will offer accurate packaging and crossbreeding protection in so far as it is humanly possible. But since it isn't 100% possible in even the most carefully controlled environments, never getting a cross-bred or mis-labeled seed is an unrealistic expectation. The best hope for meeting your definition of "reliable" is to do it all yourself - buy a certified seed, grow it yourself organically, bag the blooms and hand pollinate, and then save the seeds from the resulting fruit using your own sorting and labeling process. Even then you'll get some errors but by year 5 your reliability for that variety should be close to 98%. :) If you feel "organic seeds" is vital then the "organic" label is easy to verify if you only buy from certified and licensed organic growers. The real problem with print catalogs is that they have to go to the printers so early in the season that much of the info is outdated or simply copied from the previous year catalog, or is "guesswork" (about new varieties) before they are even published. Online sites are kept more current and accurate and subject to peer review and correction. Dave

Problem finally resolved. After being on the phone with 2 different techs who couldn't help and blamed it on the printer, I called the printer company today and they said call the internet provider. I called them and they said nothing was wrong with that. I called the Geek Squad and they offered to come at a high price. So I called Linksys back AGAIN. This new person had me to change some settings in the router online, changed channels and tweaked a couple of other things, took about 3 minutes, tops and now it's printing. I did try to download updates like the post above but my computer wouldn't allow the download, something about not being able to read it??? Anyway, it works now. WHEW!! I was just about to pack it back up and return it.