[redhead]

Just for fun, I've made a test page to illustrate how it could be done...
It is build on top of a database layout like

CREATE TABLE categories (
        id INT(11) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL auto_increment,
        name CHAR(50) NOT NULL,
        UNIQUE id (id),
        PRIMARY KEY id (id)
);
CREATE TABLE items (
        id INT(11) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL auto_increment,
        category INT(11) NOT NULL,
        name CHAR(50) NOT NULL,
        description BLOB,
        UNIQUE id (id),
        PRIMARY KEY id (id),
        FOREIGN KEY (category) REFERENCES categories
);

Let me know if this is what you were looking for...