Dog owner Pam Hall, 55, considers herself a bit extreme when it comes to caring for her two furry friends.

Sunday will be a different sort of Mother’s Day for Stacey Escalante. Not bad-different. Just different-different.

WASHINGTON — Talk about high expectations for a newborn: King and Messiah are among the fastest-rising baby names for American boys.

It’s not exactly earth-shattering news that we tend to struggle with the pronunciation of words of the culinary persuasion. The tomato/tomahto debate, after all, became part of the lore in 1937, when the Gershwins’ “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” was introduced in the film “Shall We Dance.”

OK, we’re not insinuating, by running this pictorial right before Mother’s Day, that Mom could really use a drink. Rumor does have it that statistical proof exists of an affinity between mothers (particularly new mothers) and wine, especially, but we leave it to you to decide if the mothers in your life would like to imbibe on the big day. We also get that there are tons of teetotaling mothers out there, and for them we point out that the virgin mary was one of the first mocktails; most of these drinks would be fun even without the booze.

With more people becoming passionate about gourmet cooking each day, modern kitchens are introducing a variety of innovative appliances to make the task easier and results as good as you will find in a five-star restaurant. All you need to add is your favorite recipes.