Whether it's 'The Barefoot Contessa' or 'Tyler's Ultimate,' there's a wide variety of food, cooking, chefs and experts on The Food Network. For the most part, the diversity is great and if you're a food fan -- a foodie -- you can watch FN for hours on end and be entertained. However, if you do watch for more than a few hours, especially the 'in the kitchen' programming which is all about creating dishes, there are some things that stand out -- five burning questions about the Food Network.

1. What's with the hygiene?
On nearly every cooking show, the food preparers -- whether they're an American Iron Chef like Bobby Flay or a restaurant owner/home cook like Paula Deen -- are obsessive about washing their hands. Any time they touch meat or chicken, there's a camera following them to the sink to wash hands with soap.

Super Bowl time is almost upon us and with it a veritable plethora of clever television commercials (which is the only reason I watch the Super Bowl). Super Bowl ads also have the reputation of being the most expensive television commercials for the year. However, this year that is not quite as true this year because, for the second time in history, prices for Super Bowl ads have dropped from the previous year.

Given these hard times, I'm curious about which sponsors will even run commercials for the game. Big names like GM and Pepsi aren't even advertising. It would be sort of cool if AT&T and Verizon would continue their ad war through the Super Bowl.

According to an article in the Hollywood Reporter, the cost of the WGA strike on the local Los Angeles economy is estimated at $2 billion. This is four times the number of the 1988 strike, which lasted six weeks longer.

All this information assumes the strike will end Tuesday when the contract terms are put to general vote. It's a likely assumption.

I've been to L.A. and it's pretty much a one-industry town (yes, I'm referring to the entertainment industry). When every other industry revolves around that one, a strike hits pretty hard.