For you, thatboy, it's Heather Havrilesky who keeps coming up with the homoerotic images. They amuse her hardcore fans...well, to be honest, her only fans.

BillTerrier, you might wish to examine the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It." Parker and Stone were actually very nice to their competition, as opposed to the well-deserved evisceration of Family Guy they performed. But they did point out that all these stories have been done before; if you're looking for novelty of plots, you won't have much luck.

Speed of production has its virtues, although it's not a cure-all. SNL and South Park alike can make last-minute changes. The Simpsons must work months ahead, bringing some conservatism to their content. On the other hand, Don Imus made his ill-considered comments without any lead time - in fact, not even knowing anything about the girls he slandered. Speed didn't help him.

The Simpsons has retained an audience that loves the characters. That's the factor that keeps them watching, not the quality of the episodes. The same was true of all long running sitcoms like Ozzie and Harriet, I Love Lucy, Happy Days and so many others. That may not sit well with people who seek topical comment or shoot-from-the-hip immediacy, but that's not what people keep watching The Simpsons for. Although it is true that sometime, the writing staff will need to turn over and introduce some novel elements - if Matt Groenig allows them.

First, put Heather Havrilesky up there. She's had "video experience" (her puppet show with rabbits and subtitles, showing she can at least use Ulead VideoStudio) and she claims to know everything about TV. Her time on The View should be at least as interesting as the time Harry Knowles spent on Roger Ebert's show, and just as defining of her true character.

The other is a radio personality in Orlando known publicly as The Sexy Savannah. A former Marine air traffic controller, like many vets she had a hard time after leaving the service. She wound up a topless dancer. On a whim she went on a radio show and tapdanced topless to "Rocky Top" on the studio's conference table. For the last several years she's been a supporting member of the group called the Monsters of the Morning, not only talking and taking viewer calls but singing with the Monsters Band. Her air personality is that of a bleached-blonde "redneck skank," which in the presence of the other women would be the hand grenade the staid and boring The View would greatly deserve.

Anyone who's been in a bookstore for any period since the invention of moveable type have seen shelves and shelves of these hoity-toity cookbooks. It's always a case of This Year's Blonde in those shelves; from Martha Stewart to Rachel Rae to whoever the hell this particular bimbo is.

But the only practical cookbook, that teaches you how to cook anything, is the only one you absolutely need. The Joy of Cooking in its occasional revisions should be the true world's greatest bestseller; while the Bible is in a couple of hundred revisions and can claim the top spot, if you limited it to one edition I think Joy could top it.

There are recipes for cooking anything you would wish to cook, plus basic information about all ingredients, cooking processes and even a sensible, non-trendy, non-pretentious philosophy of cooking.

Let's be honest. 98 percent of all cookbooks are food porn. Just like the magazines teenage boys hide under their beds, they contain delectable dishes that none of us can approach, because we don't have the required skills or the money or the social status to partake. And like those copies of Hustler, they end up taking space and feeding cockroaches when newer issues come out. My sister's "porn food pile" fills three bookcases, while her husband eats nothing but flavorless take-out pizza.

There are only two other cookbooks that are worth owning. The Cake Mix Doctor has recipes for making delicious cakes from existing cake mixes; as someone who struggled for years making the Swans Down "1-2-3-4" cake mix, I testify that the recipe for "classic yellow cake" made with white cake mix is a miracle. And the big volume of "Top Secret Recipes" has several recipes that make better and cheaper versions of restaurant food (the kind you people buy millions of meals of each day). The "Hard Rock Cafe Pulled Pork and Beans" is superb, and disappeared in 15 minutes when I brought it to a picnic. As for your silver spoon, save it for your freaking cocaine.

And the most important part about porn is that it offers dreams that can never be accomplished. Unless a person is rich, has unlimited free time and a biological system that can process such things, you can never eat food featured in that cookbook.

Someone asked "who behaves like this?" Have you ever looked in the libraries of any middle-aged woman above poverty level? Full of cookbooks browsed once and set aside, full of lurid color pictures and blithe recommendations about the growing of chives in your kitchen window. Whereas, normal people ask "What the hell are chives?"

Nobody sane wants to live on McDonald's, even if they can afford it financially and biologically. But nobody can live in the world of food porn, either. Like anything else in modern life, food can be full of foolish pretensions or it can be rationally practical. The Joy of Cooking is a sensible road atlas through the lunatic, unmarked European roads of food preparation. Glossy fluff books like Silver Palate are photographic guides to the glories of European castles, but they don't tell you how to get from Point A to Point B, the only thing that will keep you alive.