Several years back, when word first arrived that a new TV channel was being launched called the Food Network, I couldn’t believe my luck.

This made much more sense than that golf network and its whispering announcers; the Weather Channel, which could be replaced by simply looking out a window; or, Lord help us, NASA TV. We get it. Conquering space is wa-a-a-ay cool. But watching a silent space shuttle orbit a miniature earth is about as scintillating as watching my cat shed.

Food is definitely something I could watch 24 hours a day. You’ve got your morning cappuccino, breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, snack, snack. Never a dull moment.

I imagined it would be, to me, like one of those DVDs of swimming fish that owners play for their cats while they go to Hawaii or somewhere cool (the owners, not the cats). I could sit and be mesmerized by the array of food parading before me.

Then my daughter Shannon started to watch Food Network regularly and I got the shock of my life: Did you know the network does not show delectable dishes ready to eat but tries to teach people how to actually cook them?

Talk about feeling lower than a worm with intestinal blockage.

Who wants to watch people cook? Cooking is work, which is why I try to avoid it at all costs.

Why push those microwave buttons when you can drive right up to a handy window where someone sticks an arm out and drops warm food in your lap?

Shannon, who was raised in a bake-free home, was fascinated. She began regularly watching the shows, which seem to favor the spirit of competition. Who knew braising or making fondant could be so cutthroat?

For several years, I managed to avoid the network but last week, Shannon was stretched out on our sofa with a fever and she wanted to watch a show called “Chopped.”

Thirty seconds into it I heard a chef say these words: “The quail is very voluptuous.”

I’d never really thought of quail as voluptuous, mainly because I’d never really thought of quail.

Then it occurred to me that chefs like to use many words to describe food that I would like to use to describe myself.

Rich. Sweet. Non-fat. Tart.

Well, that last one not so much.