By CHRIS MACIAS, Sacramento Bee

Pies, cut down to size, put pleasure at hand

Move over, cupcakes, there's another bite-size treat sweetening up a bakery near you. Call them hand pies, "cutie pies" or personalized pies -- they're bites of home-style dessert that fit in your palm.

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Soup's on -- get it while it's cold

A cool and tangy serving of gazpacho remains a warm-weather staple, but look around restaurants and you'll find a bounty of chilled soups that highlight the flavors of summer produce. With a little attention to detail and the right ingredients, these soups can also be a staple of your home kitchen.

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2011 food trends? Breakfast pizza, iPad wine lists on menu

Pork belly, pop-up restaurants and organic food? That's soooooo 2010. Instead, we're looking at which food trends are in store for 2011.

Some foodstuffs never seem to go out of style, like bacon being included in everything from ice cream to chocolate. Other trends have yet to take, sometimes for bureaucratic reasons.

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Calif. wine industry ends skid but rebound to be long

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - After a year that showed the California wine industry's worst performance in more than a decade, the road to recovery remains a long haul. The best that winery owners and grape growers can say today is: At least the wine market's not getting worse.

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U.S. wine industry reeled in 2009, wary of 2010

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Rocked by tight consumer spending and import competition, the nation's wine industry reeled in 2009 and faces uncertain prospects this year.

Last year was "brutal," said John Fredrikson, a wine-business consultant with San Francisco Bay Area-based Gomberg, Fredrikson and Associates.

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Winemaker ties price to stock market

Bailout 2007 is a wine that's fermenting in oak barrels at Crushpad, a custom winemaking operation in San Francisco. But you can pre-order the Bailout 2007 now and receive a stimulus check of sorts if the stock market sours.

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Sushi guides deep six endangered fish for diners

The halcyon days of hamachi (yellowtail) are over, and don't even think about chowing down on hon maguro (bluefin tuna).

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