Holiday Gifts for Foodies
Holiday Gifts for Foodies–A Quick Guide
There are just a few days left before Santa arrives. If you find yourself feeling stress this time of year, you’re not alone. Sometimes the the search for the perfect gift can make you feel harried! Or perhaps you’re looking for a host gift to offer the brave soul who’s cooking a holiday meal for all his or her friends.
Fret not, gentle gift giver! If you’re looking for a token of your good wishes for the lover of comestibles in your life, look no further. Here are a few great ideas for holiday gifts for foodies.
Homemade Gifts
Finishing Salts
© 2011 by Tomasz Sienicki
As any good cook knows, salting a dish is a delicate art. Why not help your favourite foodie along by giving her some flavoured finishing salts. You can add peppercorns, citrus zest (great on seafood!) or chopped herbs (rosemary is heavenly!) to add that little extra something to a dish. Combine flavouring and salt in a 1:2 ratio and whiz in a food processor or grind by hand with a mortar and pestle. Put in fancy bottles or spice jars and hand-make some personalized labels.
(You can also follow the same procedure with sugar, using vanilla beans, lavender, or crushed cardamom seeds as your flavouring.)
Gifts You Can Buy
Books
Few foodies can resist sitting with a cup of great coffee, thumbing through cookbooks, and menu-planning. That’s why cookbooks are always a great gift–they can be a source of inspiration (even if you never make the dish exactly as the recipe calls for).
A few highlights from 2012:
Heat (Ok, so this isn’t a cookbook, but it’s wildly entertaining)
The Experience
Want to send the foodie dearest to you on an excursion? Swallow Tail offers tours and pop-up restaurants and supper clubs throughout the year. The upcoming Secret Supper Soiree, a 1930s speakeasy, is wonderful for the culinary connoisseur who likes to wine, dine and see their city in a new way. Find out more here. (Plus, you can always accompany them, and you get to share in the fun!)