Hi all,
I enjoy using newsgroups a lot, they are different from web sites and are not on AOL though you can access them from AOL using AOL's newsreader. Newsgroups are topic specific and you can think of them like a bulletin board that people post questions or statements to and then other people respond to. Since this is the Internet and people are people some may be off topic and some may be mildly obscene, but in the food-related newsgroups there is not too much of that. There are newsgroups for every possible interest and there are about 35,000 of them, from travel, food, biochemistry and all points in-between. Remember that people post the recipes and information and none of it is checked for accuracy (though if you make a mistake someone will point it out quickly and in some cases not too gently) so read all recipes carefully and look at all information as if someone was just telling you about it. I have used recipes and information I have gathered form this wonderful source for years and I have in 99.99 cases out of 100 been happy as a clam at high tide. 
I am including a few food related newsgroups to get you started and you can take it from there depending on what your interests are.
Dejanews is a search engine for the newsgroups. If for example you have a topic or question you think has been discussed on a specific newsgroup or you are looking for some general information related to that specific news group. You can search that newsgroup in an advanced or power search.  You can also search all the newsgroups in a general search for that topic. Dejanews is a web based search engine. It is fairly self-explanatory. 
This may seem confusing and it is not as easy as a yahoo search or just clicking on a web page, but the information that can be found using newsgroups is truly amazing.
If you have any question feel free to e-mail me and I will try to help you. 
This is not as tricky to use as it sounds and I may have made it seem more difficult than it really is so the best advice I can give is to just give it a try. You may like it as much as I do.
Gary

