In 1982, Welsh housewife Margaret Carter found herself divorced with three children to look after. With no formal training, she attempted what many talented home cooks do: She made one of her special recipes to sell locally. With startup savings of just £9.00, she began selling her homemade pâtés to pubs in Llangollen, a town nestled in the beautiful Dee Valley in northeast Wales. Few Americans know Llangollen, but it is known as the Festival Capital of Wales (music, food, balloon and fringe festivals) and the horse-drawn boat ride on the Llangollen Canal is one of the oldest attractions in the country. The River Dee, which flows through town, is the most sacred Celtic River in Western Europe. According to Arthurian legend, the Fisher King, guardian of the Holy Grail, fished its deep flowing waters.

Not every artisan food maker reaches such heights, but Americans are fortunate that, at the Fancy Food Show three years ago, Patchwork Pâté was discovered. Now the recipes are made in Pennsylvania and distributed nationwide. You can tell from the first bite that, as in the U.K., only the best ingredients are used, including lots of fresh herbs. The pâtés are made in small batches without preservatives or additives. Read the full review on TheNibble.com.

Recommended by a NIBBLE reader, this bakery in Oakland, California, is a marvel. We taste quite a bit of gluten-free, sugar-free and fat-free baked goods, hoping to discover ones that taste good enough to recommend to people on restricted diets. Our standards are that they have to be good enough for everyone in the household to enjoy. Whatever magic is being practiced at Mariposa Bakery, these wheat-free, gluten-free brownies, biscotti and coffeecakes can be enjoyed by anyone.

Few things are as convenient as a product that can sit in the fridge for months, ready to add exciting flavor to any number of dishes at a moment’s notice. That’s why we love Amore’s gourmet pastes, which are available in seven varieties: anchovy, black olive, garlic, hot pepper, pesto, sun-dried tomato and tomato. They come in handy for everyday cooking, especially when we’re low on spices and aromatics—or just in a hurry. A mere squeeze of the tube gives sauces the tang of fresh tomato, dressings a garlicky zip, and marinades a rush of hot pepper heat.

The concentrated pastes, which come from Italy, add complexity and character to other foods too. They’re great in dressings and sauces, stirred into soups, on pizza or anywhere you need a hit of flavor. In some cases, they can even be used on their own as spreads. A note: The pastes we tried tended to be already salted, so be sure to taste as you go, before adding additional salt to your dishes. Consider this saltiness yet another convenience—you might not even have to bother with extra seasonings.

Amore is made by Gia, a company located in Sant’Agostino, a municipality in the province of Ferrara in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, home to balsamic vinegar and Parmigiana-Reggiano cheese, among other delicacies. (Gia also markets a line o pastes in a tube under the Gia brand.) The pastes add negligible calories to dishes—about 15 calories a teaspoon—and are cholesterol-free and sugar-free.

Read about our favorite pastes and some great ways to use them in the full review on TheNibble.com.

Here is an artisan at work, preparing small batches of mustard with the very best ingredients available. You’ll know it the minute you taste it, and may start eating the mustard from a spoon (as we’ve enjoyed doing over the past few weeks). There’s also an organic Atomic Horseradish, marrying horseradish root with parsnip to create a very different and earthier, more flavorful style than the prepared horseradish in the refrigerator case (or our grandmother’s own eye-opening recipe of horseradish and beets). The line is certified kosher and (like all mustard) is gluten free.

All of the ingredients are USDA-certified organic, with the exception of the chocolate on the Chocolate Covered Peanut Toffee (which is the excellent Callebaut brand from Belgium). The sweetener is raw cane sugar mixed with agave nectar. The agave nectar adds flavor dimension while cutting down on the sweetness (and it’s much lower on the glycemic scale than sugar—not that we’re claiming this as health food). Yet with all this organic goodness and handcrafting, the candy is still so inexpensive that you’ll want to order lots for party favors, stocking stuffers, teacher gifts, and just to hand out, because they taste so good, they put you in a munificent mindset.