Sergio Salvador salvadorphoto.com

Marsala and mixed martial arts

Keith “The Dean of Mean” Jardine is a top-ranked cage fighter [see this week’s feature]. He's also an Albuquerque resident and a foodie. And since he named Paisano’s as one of his favorite places, we met there for dinner. Joining us at the Italian restaurant were his girlfriend Jodie Esquibel—also a cage fighter who trains with Jardine at Jackson’s MMA gym—and my girlfriend Shorty, not a cage fighter.

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Breakfast for vegetarians can often become a pipeline for the over-processed: faux chorizo, soy turkey sausage and other forms of soy-plastic sodium bombs.