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NPR's Allison Aubrey examines the danger that common food allergies pose to some Americans. Common allergens, such as peanuts and certain grains, are often unlisted as ingredients on food packaging, or contaminate other food prepared in the same factory. Such problems lead to product recalls every year and have prompted the Food and Drug Administration and food processors, to find ways to test for allergens.

Liane Hansen visits pedal-steel player Robert Randolph in the House of God Church in Orange, New Jersey. The 23-year-old guitar prodigy is part of a little-known group of church musicians playing "sacred steel", and he's now playing more and more on the club circuit. The Word, on Ropeadope Records, with Randolph, keyboardist John Medeski and the North Mississippi Allstars has just been released on CD.

In the final installment of the favorite summers series, NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg talks with a kayaking couple, Jason Hale and Dixie-Marie Prickett, who are taking this summer to fulfill a dream -- paddling some of America's most challenging rivers.

NPR's Van Williamson reports on the declining blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay. As this regional symbol grows scarce, Marylanders may have to change more than their eating habits. (6:52 -

Barbecue is America's native slow-food movement, and judging by the numbers of new barbecue restaurants across the nation, diners are hungry for the smoky glory of slow-fired meat. See the crew of Sunday's Weekend Edition devour the best Texas has to offer.

Two Kinder products in the U.S. are being recalled due to an outbreak across Europe. The manufacturer has suspended operations at the Belgian plant where the outbreak is believed to have originated.

Scott remembers the late British pop star Kirsty MacColl. She died last December at the age of 41. Her last album is a mix of English wit and Latin rhythms. It's called Tropical Brainstorm on Instinct Records (INS557-2).

Scott talks with author Michael Azerrad about the indie rock movement. Mr. Azerrad's book is Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 (Little, Brown).

Many of the short stories in Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail, Bobbie Ann Mason's new collection, "are about people busting out of something," the author tells Bob Edwards on Morning Edition. "A lot of times they're coming home, coming full circle in kind of a zig-zaggy way."

U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins is a professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. Collins' latest work is called Sailing Alone Around the Room.

Health officials in Houston, Texas, have discovered mosquitoes carrying the virus that causes St. Louis encephalitis in seven areas of the city. NPR's Wade Goodwyn travels with one of the health department's "mosquito men" as he makes his way through Houston's extensive sewer system, trapping mosquitoes and sending them back to the lab for testing. (6:15) CORRECTION, aired on All Things Considered Sept. 6, 2001: Wade Goodwyn's report about a mosquito surveillance officer in Houston brought out the science police in the audience. Dr. Victor Sloan of Scotch Plains, N.J., writes this: "In Wade Goodwyn's excellent story on Houston's mosquito hunters, he said 'when the dry ice melts.' Melting is the act of a solid becoming liquid. Dry ice does not melt, it sublimes. That is, it goes directly from a solid to a gas, without ever becoming liquid. When I was about 10, my father tried to explain this to me. It took me years to believe him."

Joe Gutierrez, a 41-year veteran of the steel mills, has some stories to tell. He's one of the writers in a new book of short stories and poems penned by steelworkers.