How do create topic specific catalogs or submenus?

Hi,

I’ve successfully created a menu of links on my site that include topic areas like:

– Home
– Food
– Fabulous Finds
– Relationships
– Road Trips
– Etc.

When I post articles, all posts show up under the site’s main “Home” page and they also show up under their respective menu/topic area (as I expect they should). This means that when I post a recipe, it shows up under “Home” and under “Food.”

However, what I’d like to do is have topic specific set of sub-menus or catalogs under each main menu area. So, for example, I’d like to be able to create categorical areas under the Food menu like:

Food:
– Appetizers
– Breakfast
– Cocktails
– Lunch
– Dinner
– Deserts
– Etc.

And, I may even want to break each sub-menu down even further. For example:

Food:
– Dinner
— Pastas
— Meats & Fish
— Vegetarian Meals
— Etc.

Clicking on each topic would take readers to a “grouping” of the posts that match that categorical area. It would be great if the final index of articles even had thumbnails that would show up with the title of each post (although this is not critical).

Could anyone please point me to a plugin or set of directions on how to solve this problem?

Thanks for your help,

Teresa
http://www.sassysuburbanite.com