Niagara's Lailey Vineyard. Photo: Monika Bartyzel

• Trekking across the Niagara Region for seasonal comfort food, pies and wines, and traveling through Muskoka for honey, coffee and family farming.
• "Mad Men," their love of cocktails, and a recipe for a Betty Draper-inspired gimlet.
• Sumac's sour, fruit-like flavor makes it a great substitute for a splash of lemon.
• Open's 2008 Riesling-Gewürtztraminer is a fine summer wine, plus the run-down on Beringer's 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ("a steal") and Prospect's Pinot Noir.
• The porcine pleasures of prosciutto pioneers.
• Recipe: Wild Blueberry Lemon Jam

The blueberry is one of my very favorite fruits. Every summer I make a point of getting out to Mood's Farm Market in South Jersey in order to pick my fill (and get enough for several batches of jam). I've always recognized the beauty of a blueberry's form, but it never occurred to me to get in there with a macro lens and capture that loveliness in this particular way.

Thanks Crystal!

Ok, so I haven't tried every blueberry-flavored beer in the world (though trust me, that is my goal). That said, I can tell you what my favorite of the ones I have tried is: Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale.

Last week you may remember I gave a few deductions (too much Olympics!) to Blue Point Brewing Company's Blueberry Ale for balance -- pointing out that many times it can be hard to organically match malt and hops to fresh fruit flavoring, especially with extremely light ales. In my opinion, the best fruit beers tend to be unfiltered wheat beers.

Enter Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale. Right out the bottle, the nose is of fresh (wild Maine, they say) blueberries, but the brewers at Atlantic Brewing Company (makers of Bar Harbor) aren't afraid to let the beer itself do some of the talking. The nose is full of malts with a touch of hoppy spice. Hold your glass up to the light though for this ale to reveal its true secret: It's got the color of a darker beer but as the official press states it's "combined with wheat to give this ale its lighter body." Basically, you can tell you're in for a mouthful.

"Our distributor asked us to do something like that," says Alan Brady, Head Brewer for Long Island, New York's Blue Point Brewing Company. "Now it's one of our top sellers."

Ah, what inspiration: I've heard more passion in bank transactions. But who can blame him: Blue Point's flagship beer Toasted Lager is a World Beer Cup winner. Now he has silly bloggers wasting his time asking questions about this fruity brew. Even the official description is somewhat backhanded: "Blue Point fresh Blueberry Ale offers an unusual twist on brewing that turns out to be just perfect" -- as if to say: "Don't worry, guys! It came out okay!"

There's a discrepancy as to how many blueberries actually go into a Blueberry Ale. The box boasts an impressive 735 pounds, whereas the website speaks to a more conservative 132. Maybe they halved the recipe? Either way, these numbers are meaningless to the average drinker -- It's all about what ends up in your nose and mouth -- and Blueberry Ale is appealing in both regards. The scent is a bounty of fresh, authentic blueberries, but surprisingly, the flavor itself is not overpowering., which is perfect. Beginner's mistake numero uno in fruit flavoring is putting too much on the palette.

• Need to whip up an impressive dinner to please your sweetie? The Globe's got you covered
• Once and for all: what's the deal with tomatoes? Are they safe to eat, or not?
• This teahouse is a little taste of Tajikistan in - where else? - Boulder, Colorado
• A Dorchester gathering celebrates West Africa with signature dishes and plenty of tradition
• Need a quick dessert? Try a Fast Blueberry Freeze - kind of like a blueberry slushy (and would work great with a splash of vodka or some triple sec)
• The Green Dragon, the Japanese Plum Ginger, and The Forbidden Passion: the names say it all
• These people aren't satisfied with just any old salad green - they go straight to the source

This Week's Food Safety Terror Alert has gone a depressing shade of blue (which isn't even on the meter) for a voluntary recall by Stonyfield Farm of their 6-ounce cups of Stonyfield Organic Fat Free Blueberry Yogurt based on reports that customers have found plastic or glass fragments in the products.

The affected yogurts have codes printed along the cup bottom that start with the following dates:

• Apr 13 08
• Apr 14 08
• Apr 15 08
• April 25 08
• Apr 26 08

If you have questions, you are advised to contact Stonyfield Farm Consumer Relations at 1-800-PRO-COWS or email crelations@Stonyfield.com.

Kashi, a company once known for its hippy-dippy, fiber-rich cereals with cheesy names (Heart-to-Heart and Good Friends immediately come to mind), has ditched its nerdy image and now boasts everything from cookies to crackers to frozen pizza.

The company's website even highlights a few recipes that (obviously) prominently feature its products. And like the store bought stuff, the recipes are deceptively healthy. (They even offer full nutrition info, if you're into that sort of thing).

The recipes range from stuffing to smoothies, but one that caught my eye was the Blueberry Almond bars, the stars of the recipe being the Heart-to-Heart Wild Blueberry and Oat Flakes and the GOLEAN Crunch! Honey Almond Flax cereals. Simple recipe tweaks, like adding tofu and soy milk and replacing white flour with wheat, make it the perfect guilt-free breakfast, snack or dessert.

Even as a kid I was never much of a pop/soda drinker, but I've always had a little love affair with iced tea. Whether it was powdered, bottled, or freshly homemade - it never mattered to me as long as I had some. Needless to say, when I saw that Stash had released a line of Iced Green Teas in powder form, I was pretty excited.

Though I haven't tried them yet, the four different varieties look pretty enticing - they come in Blueberry Green Tea, Mint Green Tea, regular Green Tea or lightly sweetened Green Tea. Has anyone out there tried them? If so, let us know what you think.

Because drinking shouldn't be confined to the weekends...

I had my first blueberry beer last year, from Sam Adams, and it was quite good. I thought the blueberry would be too sweet and overpowering, but it was actually a nice complement to the beer taste, and I'll have it again this summer. Having said that, I've never had blueberry mixed with vodka (I'm not a big vodka guy ever since an incident when I was a teen involving a pizza place and my pants, which I won't get into here), and blueberry syrup and vodka are the main ingredients in this drink, the Superhero.

I mentioned a while back that I could no longer find Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bars at any of the supermarkets in my area, and several of you left comments and sent e-mail saying you couldn't find them either. I'm pretty sure they're not being made anymore (though Nutri-Grain does have various breakfast pastries). Now I think I've found a great substitute.

Quaker has just released their own Breakfast Bars (so new they're not on their site yet), and in the same flavors that the Nutri-Grain bars came in, blueberry and banana muffin! The verdict? They're quite good. They're smaller and not as moist as the Nutri-Grain bars were. These have a slightly tougher, toastier look and feel to them, but I like them a lot.

Note to Quaker: don't discontinue these! Or, if you're going to, give me a heads up so I can buy several cases from you. Thanks.

Shauna, the Gluten-free Girl has been living with Celiac disease her entire life, but has only been eating gluten free for just over a year and a half. In that time, she has felt better than she ever did before and she has definitely learned more about gluten-free cooking and baking than she ever thought she would know. By her own admission, she does not make gluten free baked goods all that often, in large part because it is more complicated than a standard muffin and the pre-made mixes are usually just as good. This particular batch of Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins, however, she made completely from scratch. In her post, Shauna explains how she developed a feel for using gluten free flours - sweet white sorghum flour, white rice flour and tapioca flour in this case - to achieve the familiar consistency of a muffin made with wheat. To the inexperienced, gluten free baking sounds like a challenge, but as with anything else, familiarity makes things easier and Shauna's successful muffins prove that point.

I always wonder how restaurant pancakes turn out so much lovelier than my home-cooked efforts. No doubt a large griddle surface and an industrial-sized spatula is the key to making such massive pancakes, and my home cook-surface is more limited. Ah well, I can always drive fifteen minutes down the road and have a fresh stack of these lovelies from my favorite breakfast hangout, the Monument Cafe. They're thick buttermilk pancakes filled with a smattering of sliced strawberries and whole blueberries. Quite delightful!

Quiz question: What fruit is known as an antioxidant powerhouse?

Did you say pomegranate? You're right! Did you say blueberry? You're also right!

Both the pomegranate and the blueberry are well-known for their antioxidant content, making them super-duper disease-fighting foods. Each fruit on its own is powerful, but combine the two in a juice, and not only do you get the benefits of both, you also get a might tasty juice.

The San Francisco Chronicle tasted nine Pomegranate Blueberry juices available in local grocery stores, and picked Naked as their "runaway favorite" for "Good fruit aroma and balance of flavors," "smells like blueberries, tastes good but not too sweet," and "rich, thick texture." The juice scored 82 out of a possible 100 points with the panel.

The other juices they tasted and their corresponding scores were: Pom Wonderful (73), Trader Joe's (69), Whole Foods 365 (51),Trader Joe's blend (49), R.W. Knudsen (48), Fruttzo (41), TrueBlue (17), and Langers (5).

My love of pancakes notwithstanding, muffins are one of my favorite breakfast foods. They're available at just about any coffee shop or bakery and are equally good on-the-go or when nibbled at while savoring a cup of coffee. If you're inclined to make them, it only takes minutes to asseble the batter and bake them up. If you're still worried about time, they can almost always be made a day in advance, too. This particular muffin uses dried blueberries instead of fresh or frozen, so there is no blue/pink discoloration of the muffin, but you still get that blueberry flavor. To get a high, domed rise on your muffins, check out our tips on how to make a bakery-style muffin.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Anheuser-Busch is thinking outside the keg. It's tapping a test run of Wild Blue Blueberry Lager in four markets, including Bloomington, Minn.

As a self-professed beer geek and sometime home brewer, the grandaddy of fruit beers, lambic, has been on my brewdar for years. Lambic, with a flavor that intermingles sweet, musty and tart, scarcely deserves to be lumped under the term beer. In case you're wondering, I like it, but like a good stinky cheese, some varieties require a second tasting for true appreciation. As for American craft brews that have fruit flavorings – I've been underwhelmed.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like nothing more than for Wild Blue to be the first world-class US fruit beer. With an alcohol level of eight percent, it might make a better dessert beer. But I'm not hopeful given the word on Beer Advocate. The kindest thing its tasters have to say is, "Not actually horrible, but... Where did they get this blueberry flavoring?"