You're roaming the supermarket aisles looking for inspiration. It's just an ordinary Wednesday night dinner, but you don't want processed food and you definitely don't want pasta again. But what? Or, it's Saturday and you have friends coming round for dinner. You browse the fresh-fish counter - hmmm, fish would make a nice change.
But what kind to get? And how to prepare it? Well, you could just ask your mobile phone. A WAP-enabled mobile means you can access parts of the Internet - and that includes a recipe site with a database of more than 15,000 recipes. Instead of gazing, hypnotised, at harassed shoppers grabbing boxes, bags and cartons from the frozen food cabinets, key in the FoodMad wapsite, select the course you want, then an ingredient, and up comes a list of recipes.
A search for a main course with chicken, for instance, comes up with 85 recipes - then all you have to do is to decide between dishes such as Acapulco Chicken, Beer Be-cued Chicken and Chicken Zanzibar, and stick the ingredients in your trolley. At least there's less chance you'll get home and realise you've forgotten a vital ingredient. Ranging from gourmet to everyday meals and desserts, FoodMad also includes recipes and barbecue tips from the Irish chef and broadcaster, Eamonn O Cathain. To enliven a wait in the checkout queue, read his recommended recipe of the month - such as roast loin of pork with Irish wild honey, BlackBush and green peppercorns, or tossed tagliatelle with smoked salmon, dulce and poitin, at wap.foodmad.com - and there's more at www.foodmad.com on the Net.
Can technology help if you don't have WAP and arrive home from the shops with bags of food and - like Ready Steady Cook but without the expert - no idea how to make it into something you and your family really want to eat? Well, there are huge databases of recipes on the Internet - www.recipecenter.com claims to have 100,000 - and many have wonderful search engines, which all work the same way. You give the website your key ingredient - whatever you happen to have lurking at the back of your cupboard or fridge, for example - and it finds recipes for you.
At www.my-meals.com (10,000 recipes), a search for "gourmet" recipes using tomatoes and fish finds 17 recipes including ceviche tacos, ragout of tuna and baked parmesan fish. The recipes are slightly American but the extra features more than compensate: recipes are reviewed by readers, who add their own down-to-earth tips; whether you're cooking for two or 20, a click will alter the quantities instantly; you can create your own cookbook, to share with family and friends online, and easily e-mail recipes to friends. For anyone who doesn't receive enough spam, go to www.recipe-a-day.com to expand your recipe collection and receive a seasonal recipe by e-mail every day. When you come across an ingredient you haven't heard of, check it out in the online Cook's Thesaurus. Particularly useful when cooking from that authentic Indian or African cookbook, it asks you to simply type in the mystery ingredient to view a description and information on typical uses, availability and pronunciation. And for those times when you want to prepare a recipe but don't have all the ingredients, it gives advice on substitution - so if you don't have besan flour (which is made from ground chickpeas, apparently) to make onion bhajis, use plain. At www.foodsubs.com.
Another practical tool is a temperature and measurement converter - try the one at the magazine-style Good Cooking website (www.goodcooking.com). This features a guest chef, cookbook reviews and sections of how to cook, international recipes, a herb and spice guide, links to other food and wine websites, and more. Ever worried you might not be eating the right foods? Or giving your children exactly what they need? An online nutrition analysis tool from the University of Illinois allows you to analyse the food you eat. Or concerned you're eating too much for your sedentary lifestyle? Dare to calculate how many calories you should be eating, based on your daily activities, with the energy calculator. All at http://spectre.ag.uiuc.edu/~food-lab/nat/
"Why are there fish swimming in my dessert?" asks the In the Kitchen page of the funology website (www.funology.com) which provides recipes for children to cook - anything from an edible aquarium to icepops for the dog. Catch them young must be the motto of the website which gives recipes for pre-schoolers to try, with great names such as Chinese Noodle Doodles, Ants in the Sand and Creature Creation. At www.inmotion-pcs.com/amass/theboss/recipe.htm.
The Web is particularly useful for anyone with a specialised (or obscure) foodie interest. French-cheese fanatics, for instance, will enjoy the recipes, articles, reviews and festival information at www.fromages.com while anyone curious about medieval recipes (helpfully adapted for the 21st-century kitchen) can check out such dishes as roast stuffed suckling piglet and potage of roysons (an apple-raisin pudding) in the Boke of Gode Cookery at www.godecookery.com. Irish foodie sites are thin on the Web, but you can buy Clonakilty Black Pudding - and learn how to make items such as Black Pudding and Rhubarb pastries (www.clonakiltyblackpudding.ie) - or view the gardens or book a cookery course at Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery School (www.ballymaloe-cookery-school.ie). Computers are all very well, but there's nothing like a proper cookbook with photographs, which you can read in bed or prop up in the kitchen when you're cooking - a computer printout just isn't the same. One of TV's Two Fat Ladies, Clarissa Dickson Wright, offers a personalised cookbook service from her Cooks Book Shop in Edinburgh.
"You, the customer, have particular wants even if perhaps you don't recognise what they are. We pride ourselves on being able to fill those needs," she states on her website. "For example, if you are a middleaged professional male who is divorced and doesn't know the first thing about cooking but is sick and tired of getting take-aways . . . we will be able to provide you with a list of books to suit you." Just e-mail or fax the shop with details of your cooking condition, and they can help you locate a cookbook - send any information you can remember: "even the size and colour can sometimes be enough". Dickson Wright's recommended cookbooks are available to buy online, from www.cooks-book-shop.co.uk or fax 00441312264449. So next time you're thinking about what to cook, open your Internet browser instead of the fridge - it's much more relaxing.