​I've never been a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I don't eat much meat for one, and I'm just as content with potatoes being the main course as I'm with their being on the side, if not more so. My buddy Jeff, on the other hand, is that type of guy, not that there's anything wrong with it. I love the dude, and have no problem whatsoever with his preference for a well-proportioned plate of protein and starch punctuated by some sort of vegetable. What does bother me, though, is that his predilection has become an excuse not to make it himself.

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​Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market's choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast.

If you can't find someone to make you a Super Bowl meat stadium to snack on during Sunday's showdown between the Patriots and the Giants, there's always the next best thing: chips and dip. "As football climbs the rungs to become America's favorite sport, so goes the Super Bowl buffet from craptastic to fantastic, so feed your friends great food, like homemade chips and dips," says Barb, who offers recipes for both. "They go great with beer, don't cost too much, and they're delicious." She found the chips recipe in an old copy of Gourmet magazine, and the home-made onion dip, she says, is a combination of several different recipes; you can find the ingredients for the herbed dip at Marczyk's. Oh...and Barb has one more thing to add: "Go Pats!"

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​I'm sad to report that I recently tried the pizza at a local popular purveyor of it and was quite disappointed. I won't share the name of the place, seeing as how we're all especially fervent about our favorite pizza joints, and I'd prefer not to step on anyone's dough. I will say, however, that the space is way too big, that I could barely hear myself think, and that it pains me greatly to see large groups of people going there for dinner.

In my opinion, if a bunch of people want to get together and eat, then they should pick a house and cook. Which is exactly what my friends and I did a few nights later, and we ended up throwing down a pretty impressive pie, if I do say so myself.

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Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market's choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast.

Super Bowl Sunday is just a few weeks away, and while Tebow and the Broncos have been sidelined, there will still be plenty of Super Bowl parties where chips, dips, chili and, in some dire cases, frozen pizza, will be part of the potluck. But Pete, Barb and the crew from Marczyk's have another crowd-pleaser: Sausages, peppers and onions. "I walked around the market today, asking people what they thought would be good for an easy football food kind of dish, and of all the odd sources, someone said there was a great sausage and peppers recipe in the Sopranos Family Cookbook," says Barb, who admits that she had no idea such a cookbook existed. Nonetheless, the staff at Marczyk's insists the recipe is a touchdown. Barb recommends paring the dish with the Barocco primitivo, which retails for $10.99 at Marzcyk Fine Wines.

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​My close friend-slash-accidental mentor, Allen Johnson, is visiting from Mississippi this week. It's always bittersweet to see him, only in that it sucks to see him go. He happens to be one of the most inspirational people I've ever met, especially when it comes to cooking. His professional advice aside (he's spent time in the kitchen at Trattoria Stella here in Denver as well as various restaurants down south), it's his ability to improvise that I admire most.

I'll never forget, years ago, drunkenly raiding the kitchen together for a late-night snack. I stared at a pile of completely unrelated ingredients we'd collected, doubting that anything remotely palatable could come from them. "Dude," he slurred in his strong Southern drawl as he turned on the stove, "it's pretty hard to fuck up good ingredients."

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​In a world where our food has become increasingly and frighteningly far removed from its purveyors, the timeless art of butchery represents a comforting connection to the way things used to be. There's something incomparably refreshing about having a friendly chat with a trustworthy expert about your food, especially with regard to meat.

And some of the best butchers in town are behind the counter at Marczyk Fine Foods, including Tyler DuBois.

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​Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market's choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast.

During the month of January, Marczyk's is doing a superfood push, which, says Barb, "makes most people think of wheatgrass. And that, she insists, is not food. "The superfoods we want people to try," she says, "include nuts, citrus, avocado, sardines, black beans, wild-caught salmon, olive oil, quinoa, dried porcini mushrooms and dark chocolate -- see, not so bad, and certainly not monastic." Today's recipe, an orange, avocado and almond salad from the kitchen of Sue Burleigh, the mom of Marczyk's produce manager, is "a quick, light and healthy salad that's perfect for taking advantage of the variety of available winter citrus."

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​Unfortunately, because it's winter, a good portion of the produce in stock in Colorado right now, including In Season Local Market is from California. I'd been planning to buy some sweet potatoes for a soup recipe that's been hanging on the fridge and was bummed to hear the news. Alas, that's what I get for not anticipating the obvious and stocking my freezer at the peak of the season.

They did have some massive, white sweet potatoes, though, and even though they'd traveled over a thousand miles, I figured my money was better spent at In Season than at some major grocery store.

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​Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market's choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast.

Not that any of us here at Cafe Society headquarters have any intention of making New Year's resolutions, but if you, unlike us, are one of those people, then Barb says you might want to consider the benefits of salmon if your New Year's resolutions includes -- as they usually do -- some sort of wayward promise to eat better. "There's no better way to ring in the New Year than with salmon, which is healthy and full of all the right fat," Barb contends. But since today's recipe calls for a beurre blanc sauce, it's not exactly the diet equivalent of carrots and cucumbers. "The butter sauce is a fitting way to say goodbye to the season of rich food," she says. And while you're at it, you may as well toss in a few bottles of wine to usher in the New Year with dignity. Barb recommends pouring an Ingleheim Riesling from Alsace, France, which is $14.99 at Marczyk Fine Wines.

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​Truth be told, I haven't celebrated Christmas with my family in years, much to their chagrin. I do take time to visit them on my own accord, though, which is why I'll be happily soaking in the sun down south and supping upon unpretentiously badass food with family and friends in a few weeks.

In the meantime, however, my girlfriend and I have our own celebration of sorts. She's Jewish (partly why I find her so attractive, in fact), and every Christmas morning she makes kugel with fruit: a traditional Jewish, slightly sweet casserole that's become our favorite holiday treat.

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