Streaming video can serve up more than just pornography and fat kids with lightsabers. If you point your WiFi at the kitchen and plop your laptop on the counter, these five online Web video series about food can teach you how to cook — or at least make you hungry.

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"Cibi Alterati" (http://www.cibialterati.com )

At first glance, this cult cooking video blog from Berlin looks like a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. "Cibi Alterati," which translates to "Altered Food," features a madcap cast of cooks inside a tiner-than-tiny kitchen. Always present is head chef Erik Stripparo and Mr. X, his Spider-Man mask-wearing sous chef.

Each webisode focuses on one dish and begins with the "Cibi Alterati" theme song while the camera slowly pans down on the cooks. The hosts' cooking antics are supplemented with original electronic music and kinetic camera movements in the subversive videos, which can be found on YouTube, MySpace and Google Video.

Sample Recipes: Scrambled Egg, Risotto Allo Zafferano, Pizza

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"Dave Does" (http://tinyurl.com/yn99mx )

Boyish Food Network chef Dave Liberman of "Good Deal" hosts these quirky webisodes about an array of foodie topics ranging from regional wines to meals ready to eat. The focus here is on the stories behind food — although Liberman does provide recipes within the series.

Unlike most online videos, the knowledge quirkily flows outside of the webisodes. Bonus footage and related informational text pops up next to each video while an interactive graphic featuring photo galleries, recipes and travel notes is presented below.

Sample Recipes: Doughnuts, Sake, Aphrodisiacs

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"Kraft Kitchens Cooking School" (http://kraftfoods.com/kf/CookingSchool )

In this minimalist series of videos from the Kraft company, silent chefs go through the motions using Kraft products wherever possible while a narrator woodenly explains a recipe. In a video on chicken tacos, for example, she deadpans: "You will be surprised as how many ingredients you already have on hand." Really?

Next to each video is a link to either that recipe or a related recipe, as well as links to Kraft products, such as Oreo cookies, Cool Whip and Oscar Meyer wieners. There's a section called Cooking Basics, which teaches newbie lessons like how to core an apple, line a pan with foil and clean shrimp.

Sample Recipes: Browning Meat in a Skillet, Fish Cakes, Jell-O Mold Basics

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"Everyday Food" (http://tinyurl.com/ykkpxu )

Although this video series is located at Martha Stewart's Web site, you won't find her featured here. Instead, you're on a first-name basis with "Everyday Food" chefs and editors as they prepare quickie dishes without fanfare or fuss.

If it's M.Diddy your stomach desires, cooking clips from her daily show are available elsewhere on the site. The "Everyday Food" segments, however, provide to-the-point instruction on simple yummy recipes such as tortilla soup and deviled eggs.

Sample Recipes: Curried Tofu, How to Measure Flour Accurately, Lentil Walnut Burgers

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"Top Recipe: The Wong Way To Cook" (http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef_2/index.shtml )

Launched this week, this 12-webisode series from the makers of Bravo's "Top Chef" feature first-season contestant Lee Anne Wong demonstrating the winning recipe from each week's episode of the reality cooking competition's second season.

Filmed in New York at The French Culinary Institute, where Wong serves as the executive chef of event operations, each three-minute-long webisode premieres on Thursdays following "Top Chef." The spunky chef quickly explains the often exotic recipes — and adds her own personal spin.

Sample Recipes: Flambe, Asian Fusion

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Derrik J. Lang is an asap reporter.

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