• Can you have a wedding reception without a cake? A look at the evolving world of matrimonial sweets.
• The Mark Twain House hosts a wine tasting in full, classic Clemens style.
• When your main course is simple, try teaming it with an interesting side like broccoli-cheese casserole.
• Chicken pot pie with drop biscuits is a good way to stretch a few ingredients to feed a family.
• Creative ideas for showers of the wedding and baby variety.
• Put down the pie and whip up some Pilgrim's Pumpkin Pudding instead.
  
• Yet more critical praise for Francis Ford Coppola, whose Sofia Sparkling Blanc earns Wine of the Week kudos.
• Microbrew reviews for Farmington River Brown Ale, Trout River Rainbow Red, Harpoon Leviathan, Ballast Point Sea Monster Imperial Stout, Trout River Chocolate Oatmeal Stout and Iniquity Black Ale.

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.

If you're getting married this summer, then you should already have a bakery lined up to do your wedding cake. Do you have any idea how long those things take to make?!

However, if you're planning your wedding for a little bit later, Flour Girl bakery in New York City has cakes that go beyond the white fondant, lace and pearls with fresh flower decorations. The cake decorations are cute and kitchsy, like theblack and white cake pictured at right.

Heck, even if you're not getting married, you can order a cake for any occassion, and who wouldn't want a birthday cake called "Think Pink," made of red velvet cake and pink-tinted raspberry buttercream? 

While I was searching for wedding cupcake photos for my last post, I came across this great picture. Hostess has never looked so artful, so wedding-worthy. If you've planned a Super Bowl wedding, you could do worse than to stock up on cupcakes and Sno-balls and Twinkies and re-create this bad boy. Extra points for triple Twinkie tiers, I think...

You know this, right? The latest thing in wedding cakes - and by, "latest thing," I mean, "the fashion that began in Martha Stewart Weddings years ago and has now landed firmly in middle American weddings" - is to set cupcakes on wedding-style cake tiers. They can be artsy or prosaic, bold and beautiful or pasty pastel.

Best part about the cupcake tower is that it doesn't require any special skills beyond figuring out where to buy the plastic Romanesque tiers to set them on. You could even (yikes!) make your cupcakes with a mix. Got someone with passable baking skills in your wedding party? You no longer need to worry about whether your crucial middle layer will fall, or if you'll build a grand masterpiece only to have it crumble to pieces on the way to the reception. Get your friends a couple packages of cupcake liners and a bunch of baking pans, and you're golden. (Or, silver.)

Some might ask, does this make wedding cakery too accessible, with lovely creations available to the masses? Does this mean any amateur can get into the wedding-cake-making business? I say, as long as the cake is moist and the icing has lots of butter - go for it, middle America. Just make sure and get that invitation in the mail to me...