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 CHEF JAMEY FADER
Soda bread is love and life in my family. This humble peasant bread, accompanied by a pot of tea and meant to sustain farmers through the final hours of their daily toil, has been omnipresent throughout my life.

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.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
In order to "get" local, it may pay to look far and wide. The Slow Food movement — begun in Italy in the 1980s by a group of food activists — really has changed how we see the idea of eating “local.”

BY BILL ST. JOHN
True, the red, white and blue is plenty blue these days; not blue as in “blue state,” but as in glum (to be generous). Blue’s not everywhere, surely, but it’s a wide hue. Some might say that the only one thing we all do in concert is complain. But even that’s not true; many do not.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
The Italians call it dining “al fresco.” For the French, it's “en plein air.” To us, it's keeping the flies away from the chicken salad. But little else means summer in Colorado than eating outdoors and planning a picnic underneath Old Sol.

BY PETE MARCZYK
We just got some very sad news: Gary Giambrocco passed away earlier this morning. Gary was an icon in the food business in Denver — he and his family have been quietly supplying markets, restaurants, and institutions with produce, dry goods, and staples for over a hundred years. He was legitimately the nicest guy we have worked with over the past 16 years, and I will miss him greatly. 

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Some terrific foods and drinks began as accidents. Beer wasn't invented by some dude in a flannel shirt and suspenders tinkering with a formula, but most likely by a pre-Egyptian who unthinkingly left out his soupy porridge in the Sinai sun.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
We have a nifty new product that's on our Friends & Family program and that is an exclusive here at Marczyk Fine Foods in Colorado: Il Grilliatore Italian Grilled Veggies.

BY BARBARA MACFARLANE
Growing up in VT, it was always a treat to get to the ocean, Nantucket, in the summer. Out of the oppressive humidity and heat of Vermont and by the ocean breezes. Our families would rent a house and then squeeze aunts, uncles, and many cousins into it. Everyone had at least 3 kids, we had 6. Then we would drive a station wagon to the grocery store and buy about $12,000 worth of food for everyone. We would never buy fish though, because that HAD TO BE fresh.

BY BILL ST. JOHN
Having a National Eat What You Want day every May 11 isn’t like “Christmas in July,” or like everyone becoming Irish on March 17 — you know, making a day special or turning you special on it ‘cause you’re alive that day. I mean, look around; it’s pretty clear that every day is “Eat What You Want Day.”