• The Globe staff picks their favorite things of 2007.
• British director Peter Hewitt looks for tea in Boston.
• The confessions of a Starbucks regular.
• The best place to celebrate New Year's Eve? At home.
• Here are some elegant cocktails to serve on New Year's Eve.
• The best bubbly for New Year's Eve.
• The Taste Kitchen checks out salmon from Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Lascco, and other companies.
• This week's recipes: Sauteed Spinach, Roast Potatoes, Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Port Sauce, and Scones.

Since I started writing for Slashfood, I've discovered that people seem to just love bacon. Whenver I have a bacon-related post people seem to chime in with words about their love of all things bacon. So I saw this recipe and knew I had to post about it.

This is the classic example of two different foods that I love so I assume that if I put them together into one dish I'm going to love it even more. Of course, this doesn't quite work with other foods that I love, like ice cream and baked beans, but you know what I mean. This comes from the great Cooking For 2 blog.

• A treasure trove of cookie ideas for Christmas, including Double Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, Pistachio Torrone, Orange Cardamom Cookies, Meringue Stars, and Cinnamon Palmiers.
• How to make 3-D cookie ornaments for your tree.
• A Hannukkah menu, featuring finger foods.
• Some comforting dishes for winter, including Baked French Toast, Rosemary Pork Chops, and Winter Herb Pasta.
• You can use cinnamon is so many recipes.
• More recipes: Crab Bisque, Wilted Spinach with Nutmeg Butter, Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding, and Gin Rickeys.
• Also in the December issue: Christmas in Tpoztlan, a guide to making great cupcakes, the story of Kobe beef, winning over a fussy French watier, and Marge, the cutting edge cow.

Every single month of the year has a "National _______ Month" designation. Heck, I think every day has celebrates something. June has a few celebrations, and National Fruit and Vegetable Month is one of them.

Of course, you should eat a lot of fruit and vegetables all year round, but if one month can get you going, then it's a good thing. June is usually the month when I start to eat more salads and apples and oranges anyway, as I'm sure it is with a lot of people, so it's good timing.

Here's more info and tips about the month, along with links to other sites about healthy eating. And if you insist on eating a whole pizza tonight, at least put some mushrooms and onions on it.

The New York Times reports (as did The CBS Evening News last night) that a House subcommittee is going to meet today to investigate not only all of the food recalls and contaminations of the past couple of years but to examine just how the FDA operates in general.

Evidence has come to light that the FDA may have been aware of the spinach and peanut butter contamination several months before the sicknesses occurred but didn't do as much as they could have. One problem is the resources. As CBS said, even though the FDA is responsible for 80% of the food in this country and the USDA for the other twenty, for some reason, the USDA has three times as many inspectors. The FDA has also been busier with the "D" part of their name in recent years.

Farms and government agencies alike are looking for ways to mitigate the worries of consumers with oversight at both farm and national levels being discussed. Whether a new standard will be enough to boost consumer confidence to the point where the average diner doesn't look askance at a salad with baby spinach in it remains uncertain. Would it be enough for you?

In light of the E. coli and botulism problems over the past few months that have been linked to California growers, there has been a proposal that new standards should be implemented to ensure that consumers will feel safe and comfortable buying California produce. Most growers have already increased the amount of oversight that their produce recieives, but the new plan involves the creaton of a "seal of approval" for all leafy vegetables. The standards for the seal have not yet been determined, but growers and lawmakers plan to iron out the details later this spring. Issues being considered are how to more effectively test irrigation water and how to keep livestock, primarily cattle, away from cropland.

In spite of the fact that there is no actual plan in place yet, the idea of a "seal of approval" is already being met with opposition, with critics saying that "the industry's proposal relies too heavily on policing itself." This could be a strong argument in other industries, but when it comes to food safety, no one wants to make sure consumers are protected more than the growers whose livelihoods depend on consumer satisfaction with, and confidence in, their products.

In addition to the recalls on California-grown spinach and lettuce on recent weeks, there have also been three cases of botulism liked to carrot juice produced in California, two in Canada and one in the US. It may seem as though the golden state is a hotbed of disreputable produce, but in fact so much is grown in the state that these incidents should hardly be enough to provoke widespread panic.

As much as 80% of Canadian produce, and a huge amount of US produce, comes from California and, though these few cases are certainly discouraging, the vast majority of it is fine. Companies are working to eliminate the possibility of E.coli contamination in their processing centers. Botulism is from a naturally occurring organism found in soil and, with most produce, processing should eliminate any and all traces of it from food. Raw vegetables, particularly "sugary, root vegetables " like carrots, still carry a risk factor, which is how it got in to the carrot juice in the first place.