Christmas Gifts: 6 Ideas for Giving and Getting

In the quest for seasonal search-engine optimization, the Accidental Locavore is offering up a list of food-related items you might want to consider giving or getting. No particular order here, but all worth your attention.

Books: yeah, original thought — right? These are a couple of cookbooks that I’ve actually used and enjoyed and one that I wouldn’t usually consider, but might have to have just for the cover.

1. David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen: This is the cookbook I’ve actually cooked from the most this year. There’s a lot of great recipes in the book, a lot I’ve tried and a lot more waiting to be used. He writes well, which is a plus, and there are enough photos of Paris and the food there to make you want to book a ticket.
2. Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty More: My friend Bob was kind enough to send me a signed copy of this and I quickly broke it in with the spicy turnips. Cauliflower cake and a tomato salad were other great dishes and, again, there are lots more to play with!
3. Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi: This is the one I normally wouldn’t be terribly interested in as baking doesn’t happen very often chez moi, but I just made the golden caramel tart which was amazing and the cake on the cover just makes me drool, so if Santa wants to encourage my baking side, I could make room on the shelf for Dorie.

Gear: This is stuff I wouldn’t have rushed out to buy myself, but you’d have a big fight on your hands if you tried to take it away!

1. My Sansaire sous-vide machine: A very generous gift from my friend Zhu Zhu, I never thought this would be as essential as it is, but just consider it to be the newer, cooler version of a crock pot. The other advantage to it is that you can essentially pre-cook food when you have time (say a weekend) and finish it off quickly when you come home after a long day.
2. GIR silicone lids: If you didn’t get in on their Kickstarter campaign, you can pre-order these lids, and if you do it soon, they’ll be under this year’s tree. Not to worry too much, whenever you get them will be a good day. The lids come in seven colors and easily go from fridge to microwave. Sayonara saran wrap.
3. The Thermapen digital instant-read thermometer: This was another extravagant gift from Zhu Zhu, but this time it was for my husband. Funny how it fell into the wrong hands…and speaking of the wrong hands, the only downside of it is that it’s decidedly for right-handed users. However, it’s so cool and hugely useful that my much more basic (but ambidextrous) model hasn’t seen the light of day in months.

I’m sure there’s lots more, but this would be a good start for anyone. What’s on your list?