Brrr...Baby, it's cold outside. The Seattle Times Food & Wine section says to stay inside and heat up the kitchen.

• From three cookbooks, one each about hot chocolate, potpies, and coffee cakes: Recipe: Ancient Aztec Cacahuatl, Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake, Italian Picnic Potpie, Extremely Flaky Sour Cream Crust, "Keep Your Heart Pumping" Hot Chocolate, and Turkish-Style Mocha.
• It seems the haute new trends for 2007 in the supermarket are all about service, local, and ethnic.
• The Taste of the Town is Italian, with a special nod to Enza Sorrentino who opened Sorrentino Trattoria and Pizzeria with her son.

Generally, the concept of coffee cakes is a fairly limited one. The cakes are usually sweet, with a moist and somewhat dense crumb that holds up well to being eaten alongside a hot drink or just held in your hand - like a muffin. There are actually a lot of things that could potentially fall under the "coffee cake" umbrella if you consider it to apply to all breakfast breads, quick and yeasted, sweet and savory. Coffee Cakes: Simple, Sweet, and Savory has over 50 recipes for all kinds of coffee cakes and breads that are "perfect for breakfast, brunch, picnics, and desserts."

Honestly, the label of "coffee cake" doesn't really work for all the recipes in this book in my opinion. Ruby Grape Focaccia? Not coffee cake. That being said, the name is really the only problem with this book. Content-wise, it is very appealing for someone who likes to bake more than cookies because of the wide variety of cakes and breads if offers, most of which will be very appealing to family, friends or whoever you like to share with. The recipes - like Cranberry-Pecan-Orange Coffee Cake, Cinnamon-Apple Walnut Torte, Cheese-Swirled Chocolate Bundt Cake, Holiday Cranberry-Nut Bourbon Cake, French Prune Plum Cake and, on the savory side, Olive-Herb Potato Fougasse - are easy to follow and there are great color photos to tempt you as you try to pick out what to make first.

The traditional King Cake is a ring of rich pastry, similar to brioche or Danish pastry, which is filled with a rich filling, like cream cheese, marzipan or a buttery cinnamon mixture. The cake is frosted with brightly colored icing: purple to represent justice, green to represent faith, and gold to represent power. King Cakes are served some time between Epiphany and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras and can be eaten with breakfast or as a dessert.