If the groom’s cake at Kate and William’s royal reception last Friday was anything at all like the replica our associate editor cooked up for sampling, I’ll bet Kate burst a few buttons on her fitted dress. A deliciously decadent concoction of chocolate, butter, honey, dried cherries, and shortbread, Miss Hicks’ cake was fit for a king. Really.

Down the street from The Bee, other festivities celebrated the Royal Wedding of Britain’s storybook couple, last Friday. The women from Dental Associates held a Royal Wedding Party to celebrate the marriage of Kate and William by enjoying British food and watching the taped ceremony. Crazy hats were in abundance as Tori Laros, Chris Johnson, Joyce Losito, Mary Pendergast, Jean Kallay, Pat Sniffen, Charlotte Adams, Martha List, Elsa George, Alex Penick, and Lisa Penick toasted the couple.

 Meanwhile, another royal couple dressed up for the day and visited Maplewoods at Newtown. Liz Luzietti brought her dog, Izzy (dressed as Kate) and Izzy’s real life pupfriend, Pepe, (aka William) in for some pet therapy. “Izzy and Pepe met at the Newtown Pound,” Liz tells me, “and live on the same road now, where they have courted for over a year and a half!” Pepe belongs to Fran and Frank DiPaola.

Members of The Town & Country Garden Club have a pair of projects coming to a head over the next two weekends. This Saturday the ladies will be one of a several groups offering a Mother’s Day plant sale (9 am to 3 pm, rain or shine, at The Inn at Newtown); others include the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Ladies Auxiliary (Saturday, 9 am to 6 pm, at the Sandy Hook main station, 18-20 Riverside Road), Trinity Episcopal Church (Saturday and Sunday in front of the church, 36 Main Street) and Newtown Junior Women’s Club (8 am to 2 pm Saturday at Edmond Town Hall). Next weekend the members of Town & Country Garden Club will be joined by members of Newtown Lions Club as well as Girl Scout Troop 599 to present their 4th Annual Town & Country Nature Walk. That event will return to Orchard Hill Nature Center on Sunday, May 15. Residents of all ages are invited to visit the nature center on Huntingtown Road, from 2 to 5 pm, to walk its trails, learn to identify plants along the way, answer questions and win prizes, and enjoy refreshments. Members of all three groups will be there to coordinate the event, which is free of charge. For more information, or in the event of rain on Sunday afternoon, give Margareta Kotch a call at 203-426-5426.

If you are a burger connoisseur, you will be excited to know that Carole Peck, of the Good News Café in Woodbury, has opened Zeeburger Sizzle and Shake at 670 Main Street, right near her renowned café. Zeeburger features grass-fed beef and Kobe beef hotdogs, veggie burgers, and salmon burgers, I hear, as well as some all-natural and naturally good milk shakes. Visit www.zeeburger.com to find out more.

I found myself purring with pleasure that Newtown restaurateur Angelo Marini’s Sal e Pepe Contemporary Italian Bistro got a “Worth It” rating from New York Times reviewer Patricia Brooks, April 22, in the dining section. She had praise for the space, the food, the prices, and Sal e Pepe chef Carlos Pineda, as well. Congratulations, Angelo and staff!

Patricia Reinhardt reminds fellow Newtown residents that there will be a concert by The Wind Ensemble of Western Connecticut at Naugatuck Valley Community College this weekend. “Salute To The Brave — Music Inspired by War and Peace” will be performed Saturday, May 7, at 7:30 pm, in NVCC’s Mainstage Theater, 750 Chase Parkway. The ensemble is a 48-piece band that performs a wide variety of music, from classics and contemporary to show tunes and marching music. Members are amateur, student, and professional musicians from across western Connecticut. Saturday’s program will include music that relates to war throughout history and the movies, as well as pieces selected around themes of peace. Tickets are $5, and will be available at the door. Children ages 12 and under will be admitted for free. Most of the ensemble’s performances are benefit concerts. All money raised on Saturday will be divided between the Connecticut Veterans Organization and the Connecticut State Veterans Memorial Campaign. Reservations are not necessary, but if you would like more information call Patricia at 203-426-6148 or send her an e-mail at preinhardtece@sbcglobal.net.

Make it a musical weekend, and give your mother the gift of music for Mother’s Day, the next day. The Newtown Choral Society spring concert takes place this coming Sunday afternoon, May 8, at the Meeting House, beginning at 3 pm. It’s the perfect respite after brunch or before dinner. Tickets are only $10, available at the door.

The squirrel in this photo may look calm and happy, but the owners of that bird feeder were neither calm nor happy when they were woken up around 5:30 last Thursday morning, because of it. Jon and Lydia Christensen heard a “loud cracking noise,” looked outside one of the windows of their home, and “all we could see was this big black hulk,” Jon told me on Friday. The bear, “which was a good 300 pounds,” estimated Jon, had already taken down this bird feeder and was looking at a second one in the Christensen’s yard on Phyllis Lane when Jon decided it was time to scare the bear away. He didn’t tell me what he did to get the big guy moving, but when he left, the bear just kind of ambled across the road into a neighbor’s yard and took its time heading toward the woods. “It was very surprising,” Jon said. “We have lived here for 34 years and had never seen a bear before. We’ve seen fox, coyotes, turkeys, even pheasant, but this was the first bear.”

Bears can run free, but I’m all for keeping canines behind fences — so I am a big supporter of a dog park in town. But nothing is sadder than a dog peering through the fence of a crate, because it doesn’t have a home. (Unless it’s a cat peering out.) The Animal Center of Newtown has placed many cats and dogs into happy homes, and here’s your chance to open your heart to a new family member: Come meet The Animal Center’s adorable and adoptable dogs from 10 am to noon, Saturday, May 21, on the Fairfield Hills Campus, at the second annual “Strutt Your Mutt” dog walk to benefit the future dog park in Newtown.

The other thing you can adopt, if you haven’t yet, is the habit of reading of my column. So be sure next week to… Read me again.