Here we’re featuring two perspectives on dry-aged meat—one from food writer Bill St. John, and one from Pete Marczyk. They will answer some of your questions—why does it cost more? what happens during the process? what is the history of dry-aging? how soon is now?—and you will realize why our dry-aged Niman Ranch beef is our signature item of every year.

Maybe it’s an old question in the South — when’s the best time to slather on the BBQ sauce, early or late? — but here in the West, we’re unburdened by either answer because we get to do with the sauce what we want.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Significant numbers of people enjoy red wine with fish, beyond the impending pairing of Rosh Hashanah’s gefilte fish with Manischewitz. Red wines carry more tannin than do whites, an element that scours fish oil from the palate. White wine’s more assertive acidity can do the same, although often less successfully. 

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Niman Ranch pork is different; it truly is something else. I’ve cooked with it now several times, from shoulder to belly to loin. It’s not only that Niman Ranch pork has true pork flavor, it’s that that flavor is so richly deep that it shocks. When you first experience Niman Ranch pork, your palate remembers that of all the pork that you’ve eaten before, none had this much flavor.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
The key element in the recommended wines (see below) is moderate or low alcohol. Alcohol in wine-and-food combos is like push technology: it slams whatever is in a food right smack in your face. Food has a lot of salt? High-alcohol wines cause it to taste even saltier. A bit of chili heat (as here)? Alcohol takes the hot off the chart. Wines with lower alcohol don’t mishandle those elements in food, letting the ingredients’ true flavors show through. Here we’ve got a white, a sparkling white, and a low-intensity red that all marry terrifically with this multi-layered dish.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Simplify pairing wine with food by attending less to the texture, flavor or weight of each and more to elements such as salt, sweet, acid, and fat. For instance, foods with salt (as the tamari soy sauce here) really appreciate wine that is high in acidity. Acidity enlivens, cleanses and balances.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
A spoonful of sugar makes more than the medicine go down; it makes everything taste better. But sweetness can be a bugaboo to tasty wine pairings. When a dish is sweet — as here with the peach chutney or the milk of the cheese — but the wine is dry, in the way most wines are, then it's the wine that will taste like medicine.

BBQ pulled pork over salad greens? Read on.

A simple and ridiculously full-flavored topping for ice cream.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Eating asparagus is about as close as we get to dine as do the ruminants, most hoofed animals and that great natural lawn mower, the sheep. Asparagus is a grass, after all; just take a good look at it. Unlike the cow, however, we get to enjoy wine with our asparagus — but there’s the rub.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
My mother poached fish in an unholy amount of dry white wine. I've adapted her recipe to this one, both to save on the amount of wine, and also, because it is a simple recipe, as an inspiration for family peeps to cook for Mom on her annual day. You won't believe how tender these salmon filets turn out; they become fish pudding.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
This isn’t a “hunk of pork” dish; it’s meat with sweet. Check out those figs, even the cooked onion. Always pair sweet foods with wines that are either as sweet by the same measure, or that give the impression of sweetness, as do rich, fruity reds. A bit of tannin helps here, too, as a foil for fat.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
This is a sort of United Nations dish; Polish sausage, Italian pasta and greens & peppers in the mode of the southern U.S. We can pair food and wine by region. Would that there were Polish wines about. (A Polish pilsner would be nice.) But plenty of Italian wines fit well, as does a rich white from South Africa. The main element you’ll want to rely on, in any wine you choose, would be a refreshing acidity, to help clean up after the richness of the preparation.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Pair these scrumptious, savory gobbler meatballs with wines, white or red, that do not fatigue. In truth, a wine’s refreshment quotient is one mark of its felicity at table, the better food wines—white or red—being not only flexible with various foods but also of the sort that “booster shot” the palate after bites, readying them for more of what’s to come. The key element? Fresh acidity.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
It’s not the "peaches" in Palisade peaches that taste so good; it’s the "Palisade." These peaches are awesome because they come from this place on the planet.