• What is Country Captain?
• A new store in Somerville sells only cupcakes! (And here's more about cupcakes from the Globe's Dishing blog.)
• An interview with cookbook editor Judith Jones.
• A look at Adam Roberts' (The Amateur Gourmet) virtual book tour.
• The secrets to a great bundt cake.
• Mapping the genome of the pinot noir grape.
• This week's recipes: Evan's Lama Curry, Martha's Paprikash, Greek Salad, Tomato Soup, and Spiced and Glazed Apple Cake.

• You too can plan your own little Oktoberfest dinner.
• Hey, even kids can be good cooks.
• Just how healthy are those 100 calorie snack packs?
• It's just about turkey season!
• Milkshakes...for adults!
• Is there really such a thing as a healthy donut?
• This week's recipes: Basil Pesto, Grilled Fish Tacos with Avocado Salsa and Carrot Slaw, Falafel, Chicken Basquaise, and Prune Plum Kuchen.

• Grilled cheese - without the bread.
• How to make corn salad (video).
• Behind the scenes of the American Cheese Society conference.
• Should Sheryl buy a vacuum sealer for her fruits and fish?
• Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1959.
• This week's recipes: Mediterranean Chicken and Orzo Salad, Spicy Gazpacho, New Potatoes with Capers and Basil, Crab and Avocado Verrine, and Buttery Almond Crisps.

• It's the Boston Globe Magazine's Restaurant Issue, with a list of the places to get the best service, five places where you should eat at the bar, and the anatomy of an order, from the opening cocktail to the check.
• Add a pickle or two to that lunch you're having today.
• How to make chickens lay better eggs.
• Behind the scenes of CookingWithAlicia.com.
• Wagamama is opening a location in Harvard Square.
• This week's recipes: Buttermilk Pancakes, Corn Cakes, Smoked Mussels, Corn Relish, and Too Simple For Words Roasted Peppers.

I saw a preview for the new season of WE's Bridezillas, and I thought two things. One, I'm a guy so why am I watching WE so much lately? And the other thing I thought was, I am never going to have a big wedding if this is what it does to women.

But June is the month for weddings, and congrats to anyone out there who is getting married in the next few weeks. The Boston Globe has an article about one of the most important parts of the reception, the wedding cake. These aren't basic cakes, of course. They're elaborate desserts from shoppes with names like The Chocolate Tarte and Le Beau Gateau.

These people aren't just bakers, they're artists.

Coffee is hip (actually, it's been that way for several years now), and everyone is drinking it, including kids and teens. When I was a kid, we never drank coffee. It was seen as a "grown-up" thing to do, right up there with having sex, smoking cigarettes, and mortgages. But now you see kids and teens with a Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts cup in their hands, and coffee shoppes are the new malt shoppes.

The Boston Globe's Beth Teitell has an interesting piece on the trend, noting how we try to cut high sugar sodas and fat-filled candy from schools but we're not really thinking about high calorie/high fat/high sugar coffee drinks. Funny how coffee was always seen as an adult thing when soda has caffeine and sugar in it too.

Sometimes the best things to eat are the most simple to make. We can find a dessert that has a ton of ingredients and you have to have special equipment or a candy thermometer or a double boiler or a special pan. Or you have to preheat the oven or roll something into a shape or whatever. Sometimes it's great just to find a dessert that's two ingredients, you slap them together, and then you eat them 15 minutes later.

Take this recipe. It's for Chocolate-Stuffed Bananas, and it's pretty damn easy.

Ugh. Cauliflower.

I've tried to like it, but I just don't. And it's not like I hate vegetables. I even like the ones a lot of people don't like, such as yams and spinach and asparagus. But cauliflower...blah. I always get a little bummed when I'm in the store and I see a new frozen dinner that I might like, and for some reason they throw cauliflower in there. For a different color or something (it certainly can't be for the taste).

But for you cauliflower lovers, check out this recipe for Cauliflower Soup at The Boston Globe. It's not only warm and tasty (they say), but cauliflower is a good thing to eat after the holidays, when we're all trying to shed those extra pounds.

New York City has already done it, and other cities are thinking about them too. Now Boston is the latest city to consider banning the dreaded trans fats.

It's nothing that's going to happen overnight, since they are just beginning to think about it after meeting with New York City health officials about the issue. They could make a decision as soon as this February, but even if they do that the ban would not go into effect until 2008.

That's actually a wiseass headline. I'm sure there are a lot of kids who like vegetables. I loved them when I was a kid, even ones that kids are supposed to hate, like spinach and yams. But I think that a lot of kids like vegetables that you can make more "junk food-ish," like potatoes.

The Boston Globe asked three 13 and 14 year-olds to keep track of what they ate for two days, and then they showed the results to a nutritionists. The results are rather interesting. Their diets seem to revolve around pizza, french fries, mac and cheese, with some chicken and turkey thrown in. But they don't really like vegetables, unless it's corn or potatoes. Sometimes they skip lunch altogether and eat candy that they've bought at the store before school. And sometimes before school they go to Dunkin' Donuts. This is pretty bad in and of itself, but add to the fact that these kids spend several hours sitting at a desk and their computer all day (they're bright kids who do well in school and have a lot of afterschool homework and internships) and you have a recipe for bad health.

Another scary revelation? The nutritionist says that these diets are actually better than what she sees from middle-schoolers. Yikes.

• A recipe for duck that's so good you'll think it came from your favorite restaurant.
• At Christmas, Italian families eat a lot of fish.
• Do you have a cooking question? Ask the cooks.
• How does an 82 year-old woman make 3000 Christmas cookies with one 1960s era stove, all in one day?