What is a MOINK Ball? Well, moo + oink = MOINK. The moo comes from a meatball, and the oink from the bacon wrapped around it. June 5 is National MOINK Ball Day, when carnivores around the world are encouraged to whip up bacon-wrapped meatballs.

The main MOINKer is Larry Gaian, proprietor of noted barbecue blog The BBQ Grail. His International MOINK Ball Appreciation Society offers a commemorative certificate to every cook who participates in the simultaneous chow-down. For a recipe and instructions on obtaining this handsome document suitable for framing and hanging in your den or personal male nook, e-mail moinkballday@moinkballs.com.

And if you do plan on making bacon-wrapped meatballs, consider inviting an impartial judge to your home to see if you did it correctly. Someone like … me.

– Byron Kerman

Just in time for holiday entertaining, Dierbergs School of Cooking has published Appetizers, the latest addition to its growing line of cookbooks. Gracing the book’s cover is a close-up of a tomato bacon mini tart, and the loveliness of that puff-pastry blossom instantly made us want to commence our end-of-year noshing and tippling.

Appetizers features chapters on cheese, seafood and meat, veggies and fruit, dips and nibbles, beverages and desserts. The 64 individual recipes range from baked Manchego to fillo-wrapped shrimp with Jack Daniel’s sauce, from mini Greek strudels to strawberry daiquiri cupcakes. Accompanying each of the recipes in Appetizers is nutrition information, including a given recipe’s cardiac healthiness (in accordance with the Eat Hearty program co-sponsored by Missouri Baptist Medical Center and Dierbergs Markets).

The cookbook’s 18 contributors, incidentally, include chef Coby Arzola from (um, duh) Chuy Arzola’s; he provides a recipe for chipotle glazed pecans that sounds as if it would go great with the customary seasonal re-viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life.

The 96-page, 8.5-inch-square full-color hardcover, which went on sale this week, includes an index and retails for $12.95.