It's got to be a little depressing living the sausage life in a grocery-store meat case, where even the most robust bratwurst is so often upstaged by a scrawny little flank steak. At Bob's Market in Santa Monica, the small, family-run grocery store has put its chubby pork bangers and sweet Italian chicken sausages front and center for more than 30 years. You'll find classics like andouille and chorizo nestled beside more unusual offerings like chicken-apple, chicken-cilantro and pork-pecorino sausages. Most of the glistening chubs of ground meat and spices lined up in neat rows sell for a mere $5 to $6 a pound. Smile really sweetly and you can even persuade the in-house sausage guru to grind and stuff your own creation, although you've got to come up with a recipe first — and promise to buy at least five pounds of the stuff, good or bad. 1650 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica. (310) 452-2493, bobsmkt.com.

—Jenn Garbee

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