Where do you get the jars to pack your juice homemade food gifts in? We have three strategies: collect them over the year (soak the labels off nice-looking jars some other food has come in), buy vintage jars at flea markets and thrift stores OR buy them. Here’s our compendium of great looking affordable jars.
Read Moreour favorite homemade food gifts to d-i-y
We switched over to homemade food gifts for the holidays many, many years ago, and each year we find ourselves in the kitchen with the same tried-and-true recipes. But the repetition doesn’t come from a laziness or a lack of inspiration—over the years we’ve found that our friends and family look forward to these gifts,…
Read Moretuscan herb salt, p-butter cups and other homemade food gifts
If you are in a last minute quandary about unusual and much appreciated gifts,visit public radio’s The Splendid Table where Sally talks with Lynne Rosetto Kasper about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts. All are easy-to-make and pack a big bang-for-the buck. Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato…
Read Morehomemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’
This weekend, Sally’ will be talking about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts on public radio’s The Splendid Table. Learn how to make a Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato – olive oil pressed with lemons – from Italy. Her Tuscan Herb Salt can be endlessly…
Read Morefood gifts: homemade chocolates for improvising (recipe)
Shards of chocolate embedded with surprising flavors and crunchy elements make terrific gifts for much less $ than pricey “artisan-made’ chocolates. Here’s an easy, step-by-step method – and a couple of tricks – for making unfussy homemade chocolates: a thin sheet of fine chocolate into which you’ve embedded surprising and delicious elements, like chopped Marcona…
Read Moreour homemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’
This weekend on public radio stations across the country, The Splendid Table, Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s wonderful food radio show, will be airing an interview with Sally about ‘the improvised life’ approach to Homemade Holiday Food Gifts. Check out Splendid Table’s website for show times in your area, download podcasts or stream the show. You’ll find Sally’s…
Read MoreGifts that ‘Encourage Wonder and Reflection’
The recent post about Mister Rogers got me thinking about how to give gifts that “encourage wonder and reflection? Here are some gift books that do just that.
Read MoreFavorite Gifts I Love To Give
Late with my holiday preparations, I’m just wrapping my head around making food gifts as well as the few gifts I buy. Here’s are favorites that you still have time to order.
Read MoreFood Gift: DIY Chocolate Shards or Slabs with Surprising Flavors
Shards of chocolate embedded with surprising flavors and crunchy elements make terrific gifts for much less cost than pricey “artisan-made’ chocolates. Here’s how to make them.
Read MoreGifts for Eaters and Cooks via Sally and The Splendid Table
Wondering what to give cooks and eaters on your list over the holidays? Check out my interview with Melissa Clark on the great Splendid Table, airing around the country this week. To read more about the swell time-tested finds — both bought and made yourself —, follow these links.
Read MoreA Cook’s Favorite Gifts for Cooks of all Stripes
Every so often, a friend calls to ask me what cooking equipment to recommend. LONG story! You’ll find an extensive list of equipment for a basic kitchen in A New Way to Cook, along with 700+ pages of essential techniques and recipes. For now, here are my tried-and-true favorites, from high to low and back.
Read MoreRules of ReGifting + Gifts They Won’t Want to ReGift
(Video link here.) So, er, yes, well, er, we DO have a regifting drawer as well as a gift drawer of stuff we’ve bought because we think it’s universally great. Truth be told, the stuff in the regifting drawer tends to languish, we suspect because it can take a while before we find someone for whom…
Read MoreRethinking and De-stressing “Last Minute Holiday Gifts”
Yesterday while on the way to an appointment, we found ourselves in a frenzy of people shopping for gifts to meet the Christmas deadline. The tension in the air was palpable. Although we are not immune to the pressure —some people, like little kids need to get a gift on time — over the years…
Read More20+ Last Minute Thanksgiving Food Strategies
For all of you scrambling (as we are) to wrap our heads around Thanksgiving, here’s our tried-and-true food traditions that lend themselves to tailoring and improvising.
Read MorePaper Packaging for Homemade Holiday Gifts
We hadn’t thought much about packaging suggestions for homemade food gifts until our friend David Saltman was casting about for bags to pack his home-roasted coffee beans in. We had a dwindling stash of white metal tie coffee bags we’d bought years ago by begging the coffee guy at our local gourmet store to sell…
Read Morea few cool gifts by artists + designers
We’re not big on bought gifts, preferring to donate money to charity in our friends’ name, or give food gifts we’ve made. That being said, it’s nice to have an arsenal of useful, well-designed, not-too-expensive treats to give on the holidays or otherwise — our favorite gift-giving is just for the hell-of-it when we’ve found…
Read Morediy food gift: dried cherries in red wine or grappa syrup
Interior designer Suzanne Shaker recently sent this email: Sally, I’m craving your cherries in grappa. Would you please post the recipe again, as it is that time of year ..our last year’s supply is just about finished. I’m making them for gifts as you always do. A gift that lasts and brings such joy to…
Read Morewine and food pairing 101: do charts work?
Recently, a reader sent us link to an interactive wine-and-food-pairing website called Italian Wine Pairing 101 wondering what we thought about it. You choose a food group – say beef, or shellfish or fruit tarts – then recommended wines appear in a list below. (It’s one of many food-and-wine pairing charts and sites on the…
Read Moresending easter eggs (+ other oddly-shaped gifts) by mail
We’d figured we had alt-easter gift covered for this year with our seedling-filled Easter eggs, when Cynthia from 50Years50Recipes sent us ANOTHER swell, novel gift. She stuffed plastic eggs with goodies and sent them through the mail, as an invitation to her her niece and nephews to come for an Easter visit (She got the…
Read Morethe virtues of late gifts and celebrations (+ a perfect gift)
We’ve been so busy, we haven’t given all the gifts we’ve had in mind to give to friends and family. Our fridge is still stockpiled with mason jars of Prunes in Armagnac we plan to give friends we meet up with in the next few weeks. And our favorite gift for this year, the extraordinary…
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