· Raw Milk Stilton from Neal's Yard Dairy

· Gingerbread Cake from the Bakehouse

· El Rustico Radically Good Chocolate Bar from Shawn Askinosie

· Caraway Rye from the Bakehouse

· Cream Cheese from Zingerman's Creamery On Bakehouse Bagels

· #24 Ferber Experience

· Organic Frantoio Olive Oil From Chile

· Casados Olive Oil from Chile

· Pecan Pie From the Bakehouse

· Comté Cheese from France

· Amazingly Good Cold Pressed Mustard Oil from Australia

· Il Macchiaiolo Gluten-Free Pasta

· Cured Ham from All Over the Place

· Xoxoc Candied Prickly Pear

· Irish Oatmeal for Breakfast at the Deli

· Twig Farms Tomme — Handmade Aged Goat Cheese from Vermont

· Zzang® Original Candy Bars from Zingerman's Bakehouse

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Raw Milk Stilton from Neal's Yard Dairy
A great British cheese tradition taken to new heights of flavor... or maybe I should say 'old heights' since it's actually a return to what was done in centuries past more than it is innovation. Our friends at Neal's Yard Dairy in London have set this all up to restore Stilton to its traditional full flavored, raw milk greatness. This will be the third holiday season since Joe Schneider and his folks have been making the cheese and it's just gotten consistently better and better. Creamy texture, big, bluesy, delicious flavor. If you're doing any significant entertaining I'd recommend doing what so many cheese lovers do in London — buy a quarter or half wheel so you have a lot of this lusciously good blue cheese on hand throughout the holidays.

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Gingerbread Cake from the Bakehouse
I wait for this stuff all year. It's so good. It tastes great, not, of course, unrelated to the amazing ingredients that go into it — Indonesian cinnamon, cloves from the Malacca Islands, lovely long pepper from Bali (if you don't know this spice and you like black pepper, definitely give it a try), real vanilla from Mexico, crystallized and ground ginger from Asia, a bit of brewed coffee from Brazil, brown sugar from the island of Mauritius. All those exotics are blended with a splash of fresh orange juice, lots of butter, flour and fresh eggs, to develop a dark, mysterious, marvelously gingery flavor that seems to appeal to almost all ages and taste preferences. It gets this really thin sheen of a sugar crust on the outside too — sort of like that very first bit of ice crystals that start to form on the lakes early in the autumn. (Be sure to let the cake breathe for about 20 to 30 minutes after you open its plastic package.) Great on its own or with vanilla gelato from Zingerman's Creamery.

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El Rustico Radically Good Chocolate Bar from Shawn Askinosie
This new arrival has been a nearly year long joint effort by everyone here at Zingerman's and one of our favorite American chocolate makers Shawn Askinosie, whose goal was to come up with a really special, totally unique set of flavors and textures. I'm excited in particular because a) it tastes so good, and b) there really isn't anything else like this out there right now. When I was down in Papantla, on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, near Veracruz and home of the original vanilla, I learned that people there frequently chop vanilla pods and use them in their cooking (as opposed to just scraping out the seeds as we usually do here). Made sense then to mix snippets of the really good organic vanilla we're getting from Oaxaca and into a bar of the amazingly good, Missouri-made chocolate from Shawn Askinosie, down in the unlikely spot of Springfield. The cacao comes from the Soconusco region of Mexico, an area that's been known for excellence in chocolate since the time of the Aztecs. Because we love down to earth, easy to eat, complex, traditional flavors, we've dialed this bar back from the more refined, super smooth textures of high-end European chocolate (El Rustico means "the rustic one") and we've given this bar some texture — delicate sugar crystals will crunch and melt on your tongue as you eat.

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Caraway Rye from the Bakehouse
This has always been, I think, one of our best breads, and of late it's been better than ever — moist, flavorful, and darned delicious. In the last three weeks, I've heard many ravingly good comments on it, including from one of Chicago's up and coming restaurant folks, and from customers who grew up on good rye bread but haven't had for ages. I'm really not big on making claims about superiority so I won't sit here and say that this is THE best rye in the country. But in traveling all over the place I can't really say I've tasted more than two or three that were remotely close to what's coming out of the Bakehouse right now. And another of those nice compliments on it came from a guy who's writing a book about delis and has traveled the entire country doing research. He told me that the Bakehouse rye was the best he tried anywhere. Slice it off the loaf and spread with good butter, with Creamery cream cheese, jam or all of the above.

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Cream Cheese from Zingerman's Creamery On Bakehouse Bagels
This is so different from the commercial cream cheese I (and pretty much every American) grew up on. It's got so much more flavor and so much more of an interesting texture. When people talk about Slow Food in America this probably should be one of the poster boy products. The cream cheese is made from milk from the Calder family farm over in Carleton. It's made completely by hand the way cream cheese was a century ago. No corn syrup, no vegetable gum, no extrusion. It tastes... (as customers tell me often)... "like cheese!" and, because it's a fresh natural cheese, it lasts only two or three weeks in the refrigerator.

You can use the cream cheese in anything from cheesecake to canapés to sandwiches, but for me it's particularly good on the equally good, equally old-fashioned bagels we make at the Bakehouse. Hand-rolled, really boiled, baked on boards and then the stone hearth, they actually have crust the way old -style bagels are supposed to.

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#24 Ferber Experience
This is no small sandwich eating experience, but it sure is good. Named for one of Paul's life mentors, internationally known psychologist Mrs. Valeria Ferber, it's been on the menu since opening day. Mrs. Ferber passed away many years ago but the sandwich proudly lives on and, carrying on her pioneering work, continues to provide a positive therapeutic experience to thousands of pastrami lovers every year. If you're familiar with this sandwich, you already know what I'm talking about. If you haven't had it, the #24 is sliced hot pastrami pushed between two slices of really good double-baked-to-crisp-the-crust pumpernickel bread from the Bakehouse, each of which has been spread with a generous schmear of scallion cream cheese from the Creamery. Next time you're up for a lusciously large taste of so much of what makes a good deli sandwich so good, go with a #24.

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Organic Frantoio Olive Oil From Chile
This will be the second season we've had this very delicious olive oil coming to Ann Arbor from the Southern Hemisphere. Out of habit I was going to say that it's a special blend that we have made for us but it's actually the opposite — well the "for us" part is right, since we're the only ones that have it. But it's not a blend. To the contrary, what we've done is get the folks at Olave to pull out the oil from the Frantoio olive, Elvio Olave's favorite oil olive (and also my favorite of the five types that Olave grows). Elvio confidently calls it the "King of Olives." The flavor is large and luscious — really green, with hints of raw artichoke and green tomato that are so characteristic of this classic Tuscan olive. I can't tell you this oil is going to change your life or anything of that magnitude, but it's really good on almost everything — fresh mozzarella, ripe tomatoes, green salads (especially on bigger flavored options like arugula, red romaine or endive); drizzled over seafood like fresh shrimp, or grilled vegetables of every sort. Our tasting notes on this year's oil is silky smooth, a bit bigger in body than last year's offering, with a really nice peppery finish, a very nice nose and delicate green bitterness. It's gutsy enough to make its presence felt but not so powerful as to turn any more modest olive oil lover away — pretty much everyone who likes olive oil likes this stuff. Which is why I've given so many bottles of it as gifts over the last year with such positive results!

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Casados Olive Oil from Chile
Once we got going on the whole idea of a special Olave-Zingerman's bottling last year we ended up doing a very limited edition of a second oil — a really nice, and definitely unique, blend. We came to consensus on the name Casados, which means "marriage" in Spanish because the blend is a pairing of two varietals from opposite ends of the flavor spectrum. Arbequina is typically soft, smooth, and very suave with hints of green apple; Coratina is a powerhouse — big, brazen, very peppery. We ended up with an oil that's got a flavor all its own — big, but buttery, with deep bass notes, it's smoother than standard Coratina, but far punchier than your average Arbequina. This year's oil is particularly piquant. "Wow. spicy, almost cinnamony. Red hot. Delicious. Very different from last year," is an exact quote from the Deli's retail manager, Gauri Thergaonkar. The oil is excellent for big flavors like beef, pork, braised greens, really good beans, fresh tuna or swordfish. Very limited quantities and a really nice special label done up by our really special marketing and graphics crew.

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Pecan Pie From the Bakehouse
That the pecan pie from the Bakehouse is really amazingly good is not news. What makes it so darned good? A lot of Georgia pecans, sweet butter, vanilla, fresh eggs and the big thing that I think puts it over the top — the old-style Muscovado brown sugar that we get from Mauritius. Its flavor is just so much better than the commercial brown sugar everyone else uses. I'm sure we pay about ten times more to get it but the flavor is about fifty times better so I very sure we're getting good value for our money. Though hardly anyone knows it, most commercial brown sugar today is actually sugar that's been refined all the way down to white (i.e., all its natural molasses is taken out) and then enough molasses is added back to the mix to give it a touch of color. Flavorwise, commercial brown really isn't all that much different than it's ill-regarded white cousin. The other big difference between Bakehouse pecan pie (and all their pies, really) and pies you can get elsewhere is the all butter crust. Next time your at the grocery store, check the ingredients label of even the so-called high-end pie brands. Almost without fail you'll find shortening in the crust. I can't overstate the difference butter (and, in the case of our apple pie, butter and lard) makes to the flavor and texture of the crust. Add to all those other good ingredients the care and culinary skill of the pastry crew at the Bakehouse and you end up with a pretty powerfully good pie. Which I'm comfortable saying is why these guys from New Orleans were so happy to follow the lead of so many folks who live around here and get to eat it all the time. Once again, seriously, you really can taste the difference.

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Comté Cheese from France
I could go on and on about this cheese. In fact, I actually already have — if you want to read the full 5000-word essay I put together on it just drop me an email (ari@zingermans.com) and I'll happily send it your way. I've been eating, enjoying, appreciating and learning about this lovely cheese for over twenty years now and I really love to spread the word. Of late the Comté has been better than ever. For the last two years we've been working with the folks at Fort St. Antoine, one of the Franche-Comté's top cheese maturers, to get us the full, big, gutsy but still buttery and nutty and delicious kind of Comté that I really like. This is one of those cheeses that every time I taste it I want to buy a block. If you don't know Comté well I'll tell you that it comes from the Franche-Comté, the mountainous region of France that butts up against the Swiss border. I'll tell you too that it's a cousin of Swiss Gruyere but don't miss out on Comté just because you're already well acquainted with its "colleague" from across the border. While I love them both and eat each regularly, they're not the same cheese. The Comté is a touch less salty, a bit nuttier and more buttery. Great for everything from eating out of hand to cooking. It's my favorite cheese for making fondue, too. Great on a salad with the little known but I think really terrific walnut oil we get from Jean LeBlanc in France.

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Amazingly Good Cold Pressed Mustard Oil from Australia
This one caught me completely off guard, but I'm really glad it did! Although I certainly have long known of it, I've done almost no cooking with mustard oil. That changed almost overnight when, this past summer, I got going on this very special stuff from Australia of all places. It's cold pressed, high in monounsaturates and it tastes great. I've been using it for pretty much everything you can think of. It's great on salads with a touch of cider vinegar. Good on pasta. For cooking fried eggs, especially for fried egg and bacon sandwiches. I've used it to make mayonnaise, drizzled it as a finishing oil onto fish and meat. You can pretty much use it any way you would olive oil. (One caveat: It's HOT, so use it in moderation.)

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Il Macchiaiolo Gluten-Free Pasta
While I know there are other "gluten-free" pastas out there this one is actually produced using traditional techniques and, having tried many other brands, I found this to be the first one that really made me take notice for how good its flavor and texture were, not just for the fact that it's gluten free. Available by Mail Order (www.zingermans.com), at the Deli and on request at the Roadhouse (it takes a bit longer to cook but we're ready and eager to do it!)

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Cured Ham from All Over the Place
One of the nicest things to eat when you're entertaining this autumn is a selection of really good cured hams. I'm a firm believer that putting out three or four different hams is the way to do it — just like serving four different cheeses gives your guests much more variety and encourages a more interactive and educational eating experience since each has its own story and its own flavors, the same is totally true for the hams. I'll list some of my favorites below but feel free to come in and taste and see what you like.

Regardless of which one you select, here are few things to know:
a) leave the fat alone! Although we Americans have been trained to trim away all the fat, it's really the best part.
b) serve 'em at room temperature. Just like cheese, the flavors will come out far more if the ham's not cold!
c) get the ham sliced as close to when you serve it as possible. Once those thinnish slices are exposed to the air the ham will be losing its flavor and moisture and at the same time is all too likely to soak up the flavors of other foods that might be nearby.
d) don't wrap it 'round melon. I just learned this one last summer and I can't believe I never thought of it before. When we put cured ham (like Prosciutto di Parma for instance) around a wedge of melon, the moisture in the fruit naturally and inevitably pulls the natural salts out of the ham. And with it goes the flavor of the meat that the ham curer has worked so hard to create. Mind you, I'm not saying that it's bad to eat the two together — just that you want to have the two butting up against each other for as brief a time as possible in order to preserve the natural flavors of the ham.

We've got quite a list going right now, including Iberico Bellota ham from Spain (amazing "acorn" hams; incredibly expensive but also incredibly good), Prosciutto di Parma (the classic), Speck (lightly smoked, cured prosciutto from the Dolomite mountains), Nancy Newsom's country ham (from western Kentucky), Sam Edwards' country ham from Virginia, Herb Eckhouse's Iowa country ham from the middle of the country. All are very, very good — I'd be happy to have any of them served at a party I was going to, or just to have a couple slices of some for lunch with a bit of Bakehouse baguette, some cheese and fruit.

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Xoxoc Candied Prickly Pear
The recent arrival in Ann Arbor of this really tasty sweet, slightly tart candied prickly pear has happened only because of the vision and hard work of Isabella Cortés Garcia, her two sons and daughter-in-law. They live in Hidalgo, one of the poorer parts of Mexico, an area where the economy has basically been in shambles since the start of the second half of the 20th century. There's been terrible soil erosion due to the loss of traditional crops and the introduction of "modern" methods of growing. And there's been population erosion as well — the majority of the area's men have left to find work elsewhere. This project is based on taking one of the region's native products — a particular variety of prickly pear, one of nine there that qualify to use the name xoconoslte — and using it to lead the way back to economic sustainability. Isabel and her family engaged three farmers to return land to growing this traditional fruit, committing to buying their whole crop at a fair price in order to get things going. They have their own farm as well, much of which is organic. The prickly pears range in color from red to green (perfect I suppose for Christmas) and are harvested by hand (well, with gloves and poles actually due to the above mentioned prickles). The freshly gathered fruit is peeled, cooked, sun dried and then candied in natural Mexican brown sugar. Aside from tasting great, prickly pear is, according to the nutrition folks, really good for you. Put some out with nuts or cheese or just take it on the plane with you when you travel. You'll enjoy good flavor and you'll help bring sustainability back to Hidalgo in the process.

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Irish Oatmeal for Breakfast at the Deli
This stuff comes from the last stone mill in Ireland, Walton's Mill in the town of Macroom in West Cork. It's been run by the same family since the 1830s and the milling is done by Donal Creedon today pretty much as it was done for the last hundred plus years. Organic oats are toasted for two days then stone milled. The germ (i.e, the oat's natural oil) is left in, adding enormously to the flavor but making this a perishable product. Unlike your average oatmeal it can't just be left out on the shelf at room temperature, or it will spoil. (Instead, simply store it in the freezer or fridge). If you eat this regularly (as so many Deli customers do) you know already how good it is. Topped with that natural Muscovado brown sugar I wrote about in the pecan pie piece (#15 in this list), it's a pretty darned good way to start your day. It's also actually excellent in a savory setting, too. As was done in centuries past, you can serve your porridge topped with cheese, butter, cooked vegetables with bits of meat. Pretty much any way you eat it, you'll find that it's good flavor, it's good for just about everything that ails you, and it's good for the soul. At least that's how I feel about it — try it for yourself and see what you think.

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Twig Farms Tomme — Handmade Aged Goat Cheese from Vermont
This has consistently been one of my favorite cheeses this fall. Made up in West Cornwall, Vermont by Michael Lee and Emily Sunderman, who, in the impressively short time of three years, have come to craft some of the best cheese being made in the U.S. The couple raise their own goats — a small herd of 30, mostly Alpines with a couple Saanens and Nubians added into the mix — and also buy a bit of milk from one nearby, off-the-grid goat farm as well. The milk goes from the goats into the vat to make cheese within a matter of hours, and the quality of the raw material and Michael's skill in the cheese room have been getting great results. I'm particularly partial to Twig Farm's Tomme. Aged for about three months, it's got a natural grey-brown rind with a lovely white interior that's dense without being overly intense. It's a really nice eating cheese with a great flavor and a really refreshingly clean long finish. The Tomme has full flavors that've notably got "goat" yet remain remarkably mellow and creamy on the tongue at the same time. Try any Twig Farm cheese (Square Wheel and Soft Wheel have been a couple of the others we've had in) we've got at the Deli, Creamery or Roadhouse, and I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with what you get. I know I've been!

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Zzang® Original Candy Bars from Zingerman's Bakehouse
It's been 3 years now since Charlie Frank and everyone at the Bakehouse put out the first Zzang!® bars. Thirty six months later I think most everyone here will agree that they're some of the best things we've got going. As one good customer commented when Zzang!® bars first came out, "These are what a Snickers Bar aspires to, but never will be." Homemade peanut butter-honey nougat, mixed with butter-toasted Virginia peanuts, all of which is then dipped into a great dark chocolate we get from the environmentally — and flavor-friendly folks at Plantations in Ecuador. Zzang!® bars have a seriously passionate cult following now that includes all sorts of cool people like chocolatier Shawn Aksinosie, Mary Beth Lasseter, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and Steve Schanwald, executive VP for business operations for the Chicago Bulls. If you've not had Zzang!® Original, I'd highly recommend one. (I guess that's obvious from the fact that I've put them on this list. Can't think of a better stocking stuffer myself.)

Try the other two Zzang!® candy bars too:
· Ca$hew Cows
Most everyone loves cashews eaten out of hand, but for some reason they hardly ever seem to show up in confectionery. I love 'em most any way I can get 'em including in this very good candy bar. Made from cashew butter, roasted cashews, homemade cashew brittle, brightened up with a bit of puffed rice, milk chocolate and just the sunniest bit of sea salt. All that good stuff goes together and then gets hand dipped into that same exceptional dark chocolate from Ecuador as the Zzang!® Original. Sara Richardson, long time Bakehouse staffer, says that she keeps one in her glove box for chocolate emergencies — like when snow or a bit of added traffic keep her in the car for longer than she'd like, which this time of year, unfortunately, can happen.

· What the Fudge?
For the milk chocolate lovers of the candy world (Melina!). Creamy layers of milk chocolate fudge, Muscovado brown sugar caramel, and malted milk cream all stacked up dipped in that Ecuadorian dark chocolate again.