This week it's a newspaper that gets it. America is food obsessed as never before, yet newspapers across the country are slashing their food sections down to a few recipe columns off the wire amid a mass of ads. And forget local coverage. An exception is the San Francisco Chronicle food & dining page. Executive food and wine editor Michael Bauer joins us to talk the plight of the food page. The recipe for Pomegranate and Spice-Braised Pork comes from the Chronicle.

The Sterns tuck into a plate of soul food spaghetti at Ramon's in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The high priestess of wine, Andrea Immer, brings a real world take to wine issues like glasses, temperature, and what to do with that open bottle. Her latest work is Andrea's Complete Wine Course for Everyone on DVD.

Are you ready for some wattle seed or Inca Aji? Spice purveyor Nirmala Narine hunts down the truly unusual from the spice world to create her remarkable blends. Food writer Francine Maroukian talks the return of the neighborhood coffee roaster, and we have the scoop on the Healing Foods Pyramid - with wine and chocolate!

Broadcast dates for this episode:

October 1, 2005

Michael Bauer and the San Francisco Chronicle