Ah, food. To an Italian like me, everything revolves around it to some degree. For those of us who grew up with a mom or grandma who spent an entire weekend making sauce (gravy) – or the food of your culture – you know that there is something beautiful about getting together for dinner or a party around a table (or tables) of heaping bowls filled with delicious, scented, calorie-filled comforts.

If you didn’t grow up that way, you may still have been a weird kid, like I was, glued to the television when Julia Child or the Frugal Gourmet were on, marveling at how they could make something so yummy out of a few ingredients and in less than an hour. Maybe you are an aspiring chef or just want to know how to make a meal without burning it. Truth – my sister can burn packaged ramen noodles, and I honestly can’t understand how she could forget eggs in a cake.

With the Food Network, the Cooking Channel, cooking and baking competitions and the like making addicts of us all, and some movies that are just about food in general, Netflix is making our tummies rumble.

Let’s start with the competitive shows – Chopped is my clear favorite. I secretly desire a basket of random ingredients placed in front of me with the challenge to make dinner with them, but we have established already I’m a little weird. This show does just this, though, with four chefs from varying backgrounds who are given mystery ingredients and asked to make an appetizer, dinner and dessert course in an impossible amount of time. Make a dinner plate out of fruit loops, pork chops, kale and blue cheese. … I dare you.

Do you make an amazing meatloaf? Whatever your signature dish, would you go up against Bobby Flay, renowned and somewhat cocky Iron Chef, knowing he could never beat you at your own game? In Beat Bobby Flay, that is exactly what cooks aim to do. I have to admit, I love to see the guy lose to the contestants in this one.

In Cutthroat Kitchen, hosted by Alton Brown, chef contestants are given $25,000 at the start of the competition to spend wisely, buying things at auction to help themselves or cause their competition to stumble.

For a little less cutthroat and more innocent view, check out the Kid’s Baking Championship. I have to admit, these kids could bake circles around me any day of the week, and the sweets they put on the plate are worthy of a restaurant menu.

Stepping away from the competitive side of cooking to more of a documentary style find, check out Cooked, where Michael Pollan, a food writer, explores how humans around the world have prepared and connected with food throughout history.

Sushi lover? Jiro Dreams of Sushi chronicles the life of now-90-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono and his rise to creating a three Michelin Star restaurant in Tokyo. It also has social commentary on over-fishing issues around the world.

For a more fictional and funny take on food, also check out Young & Hungry (rich guy hires gorgeous young food blogger to be his personal chef), Good Burger (two guys try to save their old-school burger joint and place of employment from going out of business), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (a creepy Johnny Depp makes a kid’s dream come true during a tour of his candy factory) and The Trip (a guy goes on assignment for a newspaper touring the best restaurants and ends up being saddled with his annoying best friend for the journey).

By Jennifer Russo