Incredibly wonderful stuff is hidden among the hills and hollows of the Internet: Websites where you can "rub shoulders with the best chefs in the world;" ones where you can find secret recipes; ones where you can learn to cook salmon in the dishwasher. Hilarious sites, serious sites.

     You can locate many through a laborious search engine search. But some treasures are hidden where only our Delightful Food Webcrawler can unearth and unlock them.

     Website reviews. You'll find that our Delightful Food Guide has selected some of the best sites under each heading, giving a brief review of each, so you won't waste time on ones that don't have what you're looking for. (Don't you hate visiting site after site without finding exactly what you want? Our Delightful Food Webcrawler will save you time and effort while revealing the Internet's secret treasures.)

     Below is Webcrawler Janette's pick of the food sites. But please don't neglect the special sections accessed through the left-hand column. They're just as creamy.

Scroll down to find a web page

Adding Herbs to Your Table A treasure chest of information about growing and using herbs. Includes herbal teas and recipes using fresh herbs.

All Recipes Search through more than 23,000 recipes, bookmark those you want to return to, and they will reappear when you come back to the site. The site also offers a free health check: "Are you getting enough fiber, overweight, at the risk of diabetes or heart disease? Get FREE personalized results and nutrition plans." Along with their many "light" and "diabetic" and "low cholesterol" recipes, of course.

An Ode To Olives All about olives; recipes with olives. You can go from there to a Yahoo group for olive lovers.

Ariell's Archives Over 30,000 recipes in the following categories: African, Portuguese, Middle Eastern, Brazilian, Cajun, Greek, Spanish, Caribbean, Spanish, Eggs/Dairy, Equivalents, Lamb, Microwave, Salad Dressings, Beans/Cereals, Ethnic, Sauces/Bbq, Fish, Misc, Shellfish, Breakfast, Fruits, Modified Diet, Snacks, Pastries, Hawaiian, Pizza, Variety Meats, Dumplings, Holidays, Pork.

Chocolate and Zucchini A delightful blog site by a young Frenchwoman named Clotilde. (The site is in English.) Great recipes she's worked out herself and musings on a number of food-related topics. And, because it's a blog site, readers -- including you -- can put their own comments after the articles. Yes!!

Chocolate Webring A 22-site webring of chocolate sites, on which webring you can go round and round and get rounder and rounder. Which it may be your duty to do, because of the health benefits. After entering "flavanols in chocolate" in the Google search box, you will understand why it may be your duty to eat, not a lot of chocolate, but maybe one chocolate bar each day. Happiness can be hard to find, but you may find some here.

Coffee From New Orleans They advertise, "Coffees from every growing region roasted to perfection. Sweet, dark New Orleans French Roasts, Signature Blends, Organic and Fair Trade coffees, deep, rich Coffee and Chicory, a large selection of delicious Flavored Coffees,Decaf Flavored Coffees, and Decaf Coffees." They sell gift boxes too. Frankly, I picked this site because they include "Fair Trade coffees." Fair Trade coffee reimburses the growers who actually do the work at a fair rate, rather than offering them the pittance large operations generally do. Fair Trade coffee is of exceptionally high quality, as it is grown in the shade of the tropical forest, thus saving the forest while enabling the workers to earn a fair wage.

Cooking in New Mexico Virtually every recipe contains one kind or another of those wonderful chiles.

Cook's Thesaurus They say, "The Cook's Thesaurus is a cooking encyclopedia that covers thousands of ingredients and kitchen tools. Entries include pictures, descriptions, synonyms, pronunciations, and suggested substitutions." It's wonderful! And online! And free!

Copy Kat Their motto: "You've tried it at the restaurant; now make it at home." They also have recipes for kids to make and enjoy, newsletters and message boards (copyKat chat rooms), and places to request recipes and to give your favorites, including diet recipes. They even have a place where you can enter recipes you haven't gotten around to trying but which sound good. You'd think they'd seen Janette's pile of untried recipe clippings, in a file box on top of the file cabinet. The cat sleeps on them, so they are still useful.

Eat Wild Their goal is "to provide comprehensive, up-to-date, information about the benefits of choosing beef, pork, lamb, bison, poultry, and dairy products from pastured animals." Meaning grass-fed rather than grain-fed animals. Grass feeding not only provides a good life for the animals but, many people think, it provides a better tasting meat for consumers. The site lists sources where you can purchase these products.

Epicourageous No, I don't mean Epicurious, an entirely different site. This one says, "Many of these recipes feature unusual combinations of ingredients, or challenging procedures. But these are recipes we make over and over again, after years of trying thousands of recipes. When Ron first began cooking in the '80s, he would try a different recipe four or five times a week. We now have no idea how we ate all that food! Most were good, and when the recipe collection began to grow too large, we would mercilessly go through them and toss most of them out, keeping only the 'supers.' These recipes have survived, some for 10 years or more."

Epicurious Queen of the gourmet food sites, with recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines, forums to discuss food, and "Kitchen Confidential": recipes from restaurants around the globe.

Farmers' Markets The USDA lists farmers' markets across the U.S. If you know of one that isn't in their directory, please let them know.

Food Site Of The Day A fascinating site that lists a different food site each day, keeping them posted for a week. It's amazing what there is out there. I started this trek knowing there were hundreds of food sites. Now I know there are thousands. What's next? Millions?

Foraging For Wild Food Poor old Euell Gibbons. He was riding high; even had a breakfast food commercial. Then he died of a heart attack, and people blamed the wild foods he wrote about. Which foods, they thought, should have made him live forever. He never claimed they would, of course, not being stupid. The foods on this site will not make you live forever either, but you'll get a lot of healthy exercise finding them and a lot of pleasure eating them. If, that is, you're careful and knowledgeable in their selection and follow the foragers' creed: "When in doubt, leave it out."

Game Recipes from Mountain Breeze Recipes for cooking many kinds of game, including partridge, pheasant, wild rabbit, and venison. Plus down-home Southern recipes from family and friends. The site has a lot on it and rewards a leisurely survey.

Gandalf the Grey For those who enjoy Tolkein's books, there's the "Wizard's World of Wonder." And for those who enjoy new recipes, there are hundreds. The ones I looked at were excellent.

Tired of the same tired food gift selections? Embarrassed to give more apoplectic fruit and poor-quality cheese? Does the Internet have surprises for you!      Click here to go to our "Food Gifts" page filled with unusual and unusually good selections. Amazing resources -- and these are only the beginning! More food gift sites will be posted. So, remember: "When Webcrawler Janette searches -- you don't have to."

Garlic Festival The Gilroy, California, garlic festival is always held on the last full weekend in July. If you can't make it to Gilroy, you can still have a garlicky good time online. They have a lot of recipes. They did not have a dessert category, so I turned to Miscellaneous, hoping for Garlic Ice Cream, which I had heard about. I'm sorry to say they failed me, but they do have a recipe for Garlic Jelly, and I think a person could have a pretty good time with that. German Corner In addition to some great German recipes, they have "volume to metric conversion: These charts give the metric equivalent of American cup and spoon sizes for different ingredients." Most of the recipes sound delightfully authentic, but they also accept recipes from the general public, which explains the recipe for oven barbequed hamburgers, sent in by a woman who also sent a recipe for an authentic sounding Bavarian sausage salad. Ginny's Recipes She says most of them are "extra-good family recipes," and they do sound extra-good. Desserts predominate. Grilling with Weber The Weber Grill people have a good site, with helpful hints and a lot of good-sounding recipes.

Healthy Recipes The author of the site says it was created "to give people the opportunity to visit ONE site and get all the low calorie, healthy recipes you would ever need. I do not come up with all of these recipes. I have collected them from hundreds of websites, clubs, newsletters, cookbooks and family members." Her Warm Chocolate Pudding Cakes won my heart. Or my head, to be accurate. And that's not all: most recipes have Weight Watchers' points listed.

Herb 'N Renewal A reader of Light & Tasty magazine raved about these seasoning blends, so I checked out the site. This is a small family business, with unique seasoning blends they've worked out themselves. The blends are inexpensive, and they say customers have won chili cookoffs using their chili blend. They also have jerk seasoning, dill seasoning, soup seasoning, Cajun seasoning . . . you get the picture.

Hillbilly Housewife Not your ordinary site. She says, "The focus here is on low-cost, home-cooking from scratch. I am not a professional, and this is not a professional website. I am just a humble, barefoot, hillbilly woman with too many irons in the fire like most folks." She has a wealth of recipes for simple, low-cost dishes.

Home Canning They'll tell you how to do it, step by step, and give you the recipes too.

I Love Cheese A glossy site with lots of pictures, lots of recipes, and free cheese offers to subscribers to their newsletter.

Incredible Edible Flowers "What do they taste like? Bean blossoms have a sweet, beany flavor. Nasturtiums have a wonderfully peppery flavor similar to watercress and their pickled buds can be substituted for more expensive capers. Borage tastes like cucumber, and miniature pansies (Johny-Jump-Ups) have a mild wintergreen taste. Violets, roses and lavender lend a sweet flavor to salads or desserts. Bright yellow calendulas are an economic alternative to expensive saffron, though not quite as pungent. Others may have a spicy or peppermint flavor. When in doubt, taste, but first be sure it's not poisonous." Good thought, that last.

Kiwi Kitchen Recipes and thoughts from New Zealand food writer Pat Churchill. I especially enjoyed her column on Christmas shopping. (When it comes to Christmas shopping, they are just as downtrodden Down Under as Up Above, plus, it's hot outside.) She says, "I am almost tempted to buy the Christmas collection CD just so I can stamp on it, run it over with the car, belt it with the meat mallet - and feel so much better." The lady has her heat in the right place.

Kali's Kitchen The site operates on two levels: As a regular recipe site, about which Kali says, "This site contains holiday information, recipes, complete holiday menus, web tools and resources, cooking charts and reference material." Or you can go into the Delphi Forums section, and see a discussion of one of Kali's recipes.

Kosher Delight The site has, it says, "the best kosher restaurant guide in the world." If you're looking for Jewish hospitals, summer camps, hotels -- the list goes on and on -- it's all on this site. Including a great list of kosher recipes, in English and Hebrew.

Lasater Grasslands Beef According to their site, "Lasater Grasslands Beef is great tasting and full of flavor because our cattle are finished on grass; they spend their entire lives grazing in open pastures and are never confined in feedlots and fed grain. They are not given growth hormones, are not fed low-level antibiotics and are not treated with pesticides. That means the goodness of nature comes through in the taste of our beef." I gave some of their steaks to my husband for Christmas, and he says they are WONDERFUL!

Light and Tasty Both this site and Light and Tasty magazine have light, healthy recipes with ingredients your family should not view with alarm. One caveat: you might maintain a weight loss using the recipes on this and other "light" sites such as cookinglight.com, but in many cases -- especially with "light" desserts -- you are not going to lose weight eating this way unless your portions are sort of teensy. But who am I to knock teensy portions? My husband lost 45 pounds and is keeping them off mainly by reducing the size of his food portions.

Little Old Mead-Maker You An unusual site that tells us how to make that ancient European beverage, mead, and gives almost-lost formulas for American soda fountain syrups, about which Ed says, "The syrup formulas given here were for use in soda fountains during their heyday. You can make your own sodas, ice cream toppings, etc. with these formulas. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you can market a "new" soft drink. At the very least, you can amaze your family and friends with your unique, delicious, natural beverages."

Local Harvest Do you want fresh, locally grown, and/or organic food, but don't know where to find it? The LocalHarvest map makes it easy to find family farms, farmers' markets and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area. Just click on the map on their site. They also have an online store selling organic products of all kinds.

Low-Fat Recipes They say, "By using the low-fat recipes on this site, we will help you achieve your goal of a trimmer, healthier body." Their Pork Loin Cutlets With Lemon-Thyme Sauce sounded really good to me.

Marjorie Dorfman Writes About Food "Nothing escapes parody." I think you'll enjoy her discussion of "Ketchup, When We Pour Does It Rain And Other Flowing Issues." Plus much more.

Meathenge A superior food blog, presided over by Dr. Biggles and Mrs. Meathead, which gives its readers tender, juicy, and meaty gifts.

Medieval Recipes You like off-beat? You'll love this one: "A compilation of medieval recipes from authentic sources adapted for the 21st century kitchen, along with diverse facts on food & feasting in the Middle Ages & Renaissance and other historical culinary items." One of those sites where students might gather material for a term paper and nonstudents might have a good time.

Medieval/Renaissance Food These are transcriptions of the original documents, rather than "adaptations." If you like this sort of thing, you'll like it a lot.

Mignonne's Recipe Box A fantastic selection of usual and unusual recipes. I headed for the offbeat and clicked on Edible Flowers. These are some items I got: Acorn Pinon Soup with Wild Flowers ~Apache, Cactus Chile, Cattail Hominy, Cattail Spoon Bread, Chicory Sandwich, Fiddleheads with Corkscrew Pasta and Vegetables, Lemon Day Lilies, Milkweed Flower Syrup. But you are by no means limited to wild things. Under "breakfast" I found Mennonite Rollkuchen which sounded delicious. For lovers of the different and unique, this site is unique! And not only unique, but carefully done. For example, under "Canning" you will find not only recipes of things to can, but basic canning instructions.

Natural Food Hub They say, "Use this hub to locate retail, local, farm gate, or mail-order supplies of genuine unprocessed food fit for an omnivorous animal come to town. The accent is on fresh and safe, and it doesn't necessarily mean 'organic'." They list sources in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

One Recipe At A Time This intimate food blog is at the opposite end of the food spectrum from the big "recipe factory" sites. The author, Heidi Swanson, speaks of "exploring my collection of cookbooks, one recipe at a time." Because it's a blog, there's lots of input from readers, who wind up feeling like friends of the family. Or at least I did.

Pillsbury $1 Million Bakeoff You too can win $1 million. If that doesn't appeal, you can try the recipes for the last $1 million winner plus the 100 runners-up.

Planet Tea There's some wonderful stuff that DOESN'T come in a tea bag. My pet gripe: any time I go to a good restaurant and finish with tea, I hope for REAL tea properly brewed with loose leaves in a teapot, rather than a metal container of lukewarm water and a tea bag. But proper tea never happens, except, of course, at Chinese restaurants, where the tea is made right and tastes delicious. Chinese restaurants prove it COULD happen, but it DOESN'T happen. Except, years ago, when Queen Elizabeth II visited the U.S. An enterprising British reporter asked if she had been served teabag tea at an afternoon tea in her honor. She hadn't. If you know of a U.S. non-Chinese restaurant that serves REAL tea to people not Queen Elizabeth, please let me know.

Reluctant Gourmet Recipes and techniques for the novice cook -- from a novice cook. Lists basic techniques for such things as roasting and stir frying and moves on to basic recipes for such things as tomato sauce and lasagna. If you're an expert cook, the site welcomes your helpful hints.

Recipe Source A marvellous selection of recipes! For example, they have 54 Filipino recipes, 22 Norwegian recipes, and 107 Korean recipes. If you prefer, you can view their recipe collection broken down into main dish recipes, appetizer recipes, and so forth. In addition they have recipes for the major holidays, recipes for special diets (baby food, diabetic, gluten free, vegetarian), and recipes for "camping, canning & preserving, cat treats & food, cooking for/with kids, copycat, crafts, dog food & treats, dutch oven cooking, extraterrestrial & bizzare, gift ideas, hair & skin products, hints & helpful information, food humor, medieval, microwave, mixes." Absolutely astonishing.

Restaurant Finder An online treasure which offers a smorgasbord of restaurant directories and sites that help you select the right restaurant. You can, for example, make reservations at 165,000 restaurants in 82 countries. Most of these restaurants are in the U.S. (listings can be broken down by state, region, or local area), but you'll also find extensive listings for restaurants in London and France. And, of course, listings in 79 other countries. You'll also find reviews of new restaurants, and . . . and . . . the options roll on. Marvellous!

Ring of Fire They say, "The Ring of Fire is a comprehensive Web index of hot and spicy food related web pages. Our member sites are some of the most authoritative sources on the Internet for making, cooking with and ordering online gourmet hot sauces, salsas, seasonings, barbecue sauces, rubs, jellies and hot peppers." Devotees of the chile take note.

Roman Bath Snacks NOVA will take you for a tour through an ancient Roman public bath and what you might have had to eat while there. The ancient Romans liked to spend the day bathing in public, feeling this was nice and friendly. And of course they got hungry from time to time. (This NOVA site is family safe. All my sites are family safe.) NOVA will take you on additional historical tours, if you use this site as a springboard.

Roman Food in Britain Britain was a colony of ancient Rome for more than 400 years -- about the length of time Europeans have been living in North America. The Romans left behind Hadrian's Wall, a smaller version of the Great Wall of China and built for the same reason -- in Hadrian's case to keep out the fierce Picts of Scotland. Now, the Scots are justly proud of their unconquered status, but did they miss out on some good food? Visit this site, plan a Roman dinner using authentic Roman recipes, and see for yourself. Or gather information for an unusual history paper or project.

Shoebox Recipes The author says, "Shoe Box Recipes is a family recipe collection that has been gathered over the many decades of my Mother's lifetime, as well as some that I have collected and added to it. The original recipe collection long ago outgrew the old wooden recipe box that it had started out in and found its way into an old shoe box that could comfortably hold all of the recipe cards. I still have that old wooden recipe box!"

Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcake Poor old fruitcake. It needs protection -- from the cheap commercial versions that have ruined its reputation. The site has some delicious-sounding recipes, and you can send in yours as well. It also has a link to the "Fruitcake Amnesty Program," which sounds like a wonderful program we should all get behind. But the link doesn't work. It was probably killed by fruitcake haters. There are vicious people out there.

Soupsong A delight! The site is supposedly about soup, and it does have good soup recipes, but it is really about Pat Solley's witty interaction with her readers, heightened by her extensive knowledge of the history of . . . you guessed it . . . SOUP. You can subscribe to her monthly newsletter and be delighted on a regular basis.

Spices From McCormick Their spice encyclopedia tells about each spice they offer, plus giving recipes using that spice. Which recipes sound delicious.

Splenda This no-calorie sweetener is made from sugar with all the calories removed! Don't ask me how. I don't know how electricity works either, but I use it. In the case of Splenda, I use it on my breakfast cereal regularly and in other ways occasionally. The Splenda people say that it can be substituted, cup for cup, in any recipe using sugar. I have to tell you that my friend Jane, who is blessed (or cursed) with an accurate palate, tried Splenda in one of her favorite dessert recipes, and she and her husband thought it gave an artificial flavor. And I'm sure they're right. Splenda.com gives helpful hints as to when you can substitute Splenda in a recipe and when you can't. If you follow their recommendations I think you'll be pleased with the results, while eliminating a bunch of empty calories.

The Big Enchilada This site gives exactly ONE unusual taco recipe and is willing in addition to send you, for just $3, the recipe for the most wonderful enchiladas in the whole world. I couldn't resist that brisk, practical approach.

The Missing Pages Cookbook The author says, "For many years, my mother would send me recipes. They were often handwritten on yellowed, stained, and tattered paper, or were the actual pages to the cookbooks that she had relied on as she learned to cook, complete with the adjustments and additions to our favorite recipes. Many were only written down for my benefit, and I now understand how much work that was for her, as I too, try to put on paper the recipes that only existed previously in my head. I've also included recipes I acquired from friends or created through the years." A small collection of old family recipes, some of them good indeed.

The Pratt Family Cookbook Includes dairy-free recipes and allergy-free recipes -- and a great collection of sites with special Easter sections. Following which comes a delightful section that explores eggs at a child's level. Including, of course, Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs With Ham.

The Smoke Ring A ring of more than 600 linked barbecue sites. They say, "The Smoke Ring is the place to find everything you need to know about barbecue, grilling and smoking. Whether you are looking for recipes, grills, smokers, sauces, rubs, or want to learn how to cook barbecue, the Smoke Ring, or one of our over 600 member sites, has what you need." The site also has some great-sounding recipes.