Choosing an online cooking school

When it comes to cooking, a video may be worth a thousand pictures. Indeed, no combination of prose and photographs can convey how to chop an onion as effectively as a short video.

The Internet is an almost infinite source of live-action cooking instruction. Whether you want to prop up your iPad behind your cutting board or watch your computer before heading into the kitchen, the Web puts a world of culinary know-how at your fingertips.

If you're looking for cooking advice, one effective way to proceed may well be the simplest: Google the skill you're interested in (put it in quotes -- "chop onion" -- for more accurate results) along with the word "video" and presto: a screenful of results, each one tagged with its length and when it was posted. Going to youtube.com, the Web's largest library of videos, will generate similar results, plus you'll be able to see how many views each video has, a rough guide to its usefulness.

There's always a chance that Google or YouTube will direct you to a video starring someone who has no idea what she's doing. That's why it's helpful to patronize websites that exercise some curatorial control over content. Professional chefs, cooking magazines and even a local cooking school, A la Carte in Lynbrook, are rising to the challenge of translating their expertise into online videos.