In fact, we’re doing three grinds: Butcher’s Choice, Extra Lean, and Old School

All the ground meat that you see in our meat cases is ground by us, and we use only Niman Ranch. The network of small family farms that makes up Niman Ranch is devoted to raising animals in spacious, cruelty- and stress-free environments, with no antibiotics or hormones. All of that care, and the fact that the animals can work their muscles they way they're supposed to, translates to meat of the highest quality, and this is the meat that makes up our grinds.

Read more about — and order! — our Niman Ranch grind by going here. You can order through Monday, 4/22, and pick up your order starting Friday, 4/26.

Our artisan bread for April…

Rustic French Loaf

Our artisan bread for April is a Rustic French loaf, and to accompany it we're making cassoulet.

"Cassoulet" is merely a fancy term for "casserole," and "fancy" merely because it is French. It derives from the term "cassole," which is simply the French clay pot in which it is cooked. The most important thing about cassoulet is that the best flavors are layered, in the same way that paint or color is applied to a canvas. In a cassoulet, the gesso is the white bean, fairly bland, but as with gesso on a canvas, perhaps the most important element of the cassoulet overall. Without it, the other flavors in the dish — "painted on" as they are, from stock, aromatics, herbs, fat and meat — would not shine forth.

Read all about — and order! — our Rustic French Bread and cassoulet by going to this page.

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Brazed and Glazed Umami Salmon and Lion’s Mane Mushrooms on a Bed of Asian-American Greens

BY BILL ST. JOHN

The Haku Smoked Shoyu, mushrooms, and a touch of dashi in the greens are an umami trifecta here. Cutting the fish into thick "fingers" makes for easier flipping in the skillet. Serves 2–3.

  • • 2 tablespoons each: light or regular brown sugar, sake or apple juice, mirin, and Haku Smoked Shoyu (for a less sweet glaze, use only 1 tablespoon brown sugar)

    • 1 box Altius Urban Farms "Five Points Mix"

    • 5 ounces washed, stemmed, and torn leaves of domestic collard, turnip or mustard greens, or any combination of the three.

    • 2 tablespoons Shiro Dashi or 1 teaspoon miso paste dissolved in 2 tablespoons water

    • 1 clove garlic, mashed into a paste or finely grated (optional)

    • 1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil

    • 1 pound Marczyk Fine Foods Farmed Chilean Salmon, skin-on, cut into portions no wider than 2 inches across

    • 200 grams (about 1 package) Jacob's Mushrooms Lion's Mane Mushrooms, shredded (do not cut up) into strips both short and medium-length

    • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

    • Hot red pepper flakes (optional)

...and the other two are also exceptional Japanese shoyus. These are all part of our Friends & Family program and are available for special prices through February 4 — save $5 on the Smoked, Whisky Barrel-Aged, and Garlic Shoyus, and on the Shiro Dashi. If you’d like to see our entire Friends & Family lineup for January, presented in sparkling alphabetical order by brand, just go here — save a lot of money on a lot of great products.

  • 1. MAKE THE SAUCE Stir the sugar, sake or apple juice, mirin, and shoyu until the sugar is dissolved. Set the sauce aside.

    2. COOK THE GREENS: In a large bowl, toss together the two sets of greens. Steam or sauté them just enough to cook them through, anywhere from 3-4 minutes depending on your cooking method. You also may need to do the greens in batches, again depending on your cooking method. Use the optional garlic if desired. Remove from the heat and shock in a large bowl of iced water. After a minute or two, remove any ice, drain, squeeze lightly, return to the bowl, and toss with the dashi or miso water. Set aside in a warm place.

    3. PREPARE THE FISH AND MUSHROOMS: In a large nonstick skillet set over medium heat, film the skillet with the oil, then place the salmon pieces skin-side down and sear them for 4-5 minutes, until the skin is uniformly lightly browned. Flip the salmon pieces over and sear on the non-skin side for an additional 2 minutes. Remove the salmon to a warm plate and proceed.

    4. ADD THE SHREDDED MUSHROOMS to the skillet and brown them lightly, stirring, about 90 seconds. Add the butter, let it melt and then cook the mushrooms in it for 90 seconds, stirring. Add back to the skillet the salmon "fingers." Pour the sauce around the skillet and cook the mushrooms and fish, flipping the fish to coat all its sides with the sauce and stirring the sauce into the mushrooms.

    5. THE SAUCE WILL THICKEN and begin to glaze the contents of the skillet. Time to eat.

    6. SERVE THE SALMON and mushrooms on a bed of the greens on warmed plates. Garnish with the red pepper flakes if desired.

Make Spicy Rice “Pizza”

using Cadia products

Adapted by Bill St. John from Priya Krishna, Indian-ish (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Serves 4-6 depending on portion size.

Spicy Rice “Pizza”

Cadia is a line of products we carry — dozens and dozens of products — that are high-quality (the vast majority is certified organic) without the high price. This recipe features five Cadia products (those up above there), along with a couple vegetables and anything else you might want to add, like pepperoni or sausage. Just click on the expandable boxes below for everything you need.
  • 2 tablespoons Cadia Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
  • 1 medium jalapeño pepper, trimmed, deveined and minced
  • 3 cups cooked Cadia Long Grain White Rice (from a little over 1 cup uncooked)
  • 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  • 1/2 jar (about 1 and 1/2 cups) Cadia Arrabbiata Pasta Sauce
  • Cadia Extra Virgin Olive Oil Spray
  • 1 cup shredded Cadia Sharp Cheddar Cheese
  • 1 cup shredded Marczyk Fine Foods Market-Made Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

  1. In the olive oil, over medium-high heat and in a skillet, cook the onions and minced pepper for 6-7 minutes, or until the onions lose their color. Remove from the heat and set aside for a moment.
  2. Heat the oven to 500 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the rice, salt and pasta sauce. Fold in the onions and jalapeño and mix until uniform throughout. Spray a 9”x9” (or other 8-cup in volume baking dish) with the olive oil spray and layer the rice and sauce mixture into it.
  3. Top with a layer of the cheddar cheese, then a second layer of the fresh mozzarella. With the oven at 500 degrees, also turn on the oven’s broiler and place the rice “pizza” on a rack 4 to 6 inches from the broiling element and cook for 5 minutes (or more) or until the cheeses are bubbling and beginning to brown.
  4. Remove from the oven and let “set up” for 5 minutes and serve.


As you can see, these are some very good prices for organic products.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Cooking Spray
$5.49/5oz

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
$8.49/500mL

Arrabiata Pasta Sauce
$3.99/24oz

Long Grain White Rice
$5.49/32oz

Mild Cheddar Cheese Block
$5.49/8oz

The Essentials

These are just three of the market-pick items you'll find in our stores, and they are kitchen must-haves. We spend a lot of time looking for products whose quality is exceptional but whose price will leave you wide-eyed in a good way, and we like to put our name on these. Our market-pick Spanish extra virgin olive oil, is light and mild and buttery. It's good for cooking and for pouring over what you've just cooked, and at $17.99 for 750mL, you won't find a better deal for a Spanish EVOO of this quality. Pour it liberally and on everything.

Similarly, our two-year aged Italian balsamic vinegars are perfect for adding some acid and complex sweetness to a dish. Mix some with extra virgin olive oil for an adventure in bread-dipping. Add an itty-bitty bit — a little goes a long way — to meats, ice cream, roasted vegetables, fish, or make your own balsamic dressing. The uses for balsamic are nearly endless.

Marczyk's Market-Pick Estepa EVOO
Friends & Family: $17.99/btl
(reg $19.99/btl)

Marczyk's Market-Pick 2-Year Aged Balsamic
Friends & Family: $12.99/btl
(reg $14.99/btl)

Marczyk's Market-Pick Certified Organic Balsamic
Friends & Family: $19.99/btl
(reg $24.99/btl)

Marczyk Catering

 
 
 

What you see above is our Antipasto Platter, an amalgam of meats, cheeses, and additional delicacies such as artichoke hearts, dried tomatoes in olive oil, a selection of olives, and other lovelies that we may add. We slice all of the meats and cheeses to order and assemble each platter by hand. For our vegetable platters we cut whole heads of fresh broccoli and cauliflower, whole bell peppers and cucumbers, so you can truly enjoy their flavors. We challenge ourselves to source the most outstanding ingredients we can find. If you'd like to make an impression, aesthetically and gustatorily (such a strange word to mean “concerned with the sense of taste”), order one of our platters.

 
 

Need a gift card?

 
 
 

We sell physical gift cards in-store only, BUT we also have e-gift cards, so if you live in Kathmandu but your son, daughter, niece, nephew, or orangutan lives in or around Denver and likes to shop at Marczyk Fine Foods, you can have an e-gift card emailed or texted to them, or you can print it and send it via snail-mail. Just click on the button below to go to the e-gift card page. (Also, it doesn’t matter from which store you purchase an e-gift card; it all works out the same.)

 
 
Every now and then we’ll find a product (almost always locally made) that we love so much, it makes us wish we had made it. Since we can’t take credit for making the product, the next best thing is to partner with the producer and sell even more of their product but with the Marczyk name on it. These are products that we 100% stand by, and you will 100% love them.

See the full lineup here.
 
 

Specials worth a special trip

Every weekend, from Friday through Sunday, we feature some really good savings on some really good items, from meat and seafood to jarred Italian tomatoes to our market-made baguettes. You never know what we’ll be featuring.

 
 
 

Search our stores

Are you wondering if we have guanciale, or what mustards we carry, or if we have real Parmigiano Reggiano? Just use these buttons to search our stores. If you still don’t find what you’re looking for, send us a message and we’ll let you know.

 
 
 
 

STEVE ELA, COLORADO APPLE GROWER

BY BILL ST. JOHN

For at least the past four years, weather’s been the bane of Colorado apple growing. Tree-killing frosts, hail and cool spring rains — sometimes a combination of all three — are no help with blossom bloom or fruition. “There just isn’t the production [of Colorado apples] anymore,” says Steve Ela, operations manager and partner in Ela Family Farms, Hotchkiss, Colo.

“Delta County” — on Colorado’s Western Slope and home to Hotchkiss, Paonia, Delta and other apple-producing towns — "grows 75 percent of our state’s apples,” says Ela, “but since 2000, it’s also lost 80 percent of its apple production.”

Another significant factor explaining the dearth of Colorado-grown apples compared to what’s available in the state’s grocers’ produce sections are what Ela calls “Club Varieties” such as Pink Lady (also known as Cripps Pink), SweeTango, Cosmic Crisp, Opal, and other sorts of apples new to grocery stores over the past few years.

“You must be a member of ‘The Club’ to grow and sell these apples,” says Ela, because the names of apples grown by “The Club” are registered trademarks. “Their producers have bought the growing and naming rights to those apples.”

“So,” adds Ela, a rueful note to his voice, “if they can control the tree, they can control the supply and the price. “If you’re not a member of ‘The Club,’ you can’t grow them,” Ela says. “We’ll never have access to grow those apples.”

But that’s why Ela Family Farms grows heirloom varieties such as Zestar, Sansa and Ginger Gold, as well as the Gala, Jonathan and Golden Delicious.