Ruth Reichl's Blog, page 33

Gift Guide 2013: Still Time.....

 

Say cheese. You can't do it too often. 

I'm repeating myself here, but since I first posted this gift, 4 years ago, it's become much easier to find. And I still think these cheese papers make a fantastic gift: it's impossible to have too many. 

Here’s the problem: If you love cheese as much as I do, you always buy too much. Then you watch it wither away in your refrigerator, dying a slow and horrible death. In order to protect it, you need to wrap it away from all the aggressive odors that inhabit your refrigerator, waiting to pounce. But plastic or foil simply suffocate your cheese. Waxed paper is less lethal – it allows it to breathe – but offers little in the way of protection. If you want to make your cheese happy, this is the answer. 

Somebody once brought me a package of cheese papers, and it changed my life; I’ve been grateful ever since. I’m pretty sure your friends will feel the same.

A package costs $9, and they're available in all sorts of supermarkets (even Safeway!), kitchenware shops (Sur La Table) and gourmet emporiums (Dean & DeLuca).  And while you're at it, buy some for yourself. You won't regret it. 

2013 Gift Guide: The Christmas Spirit

I love food people.  I’ve always thought it was impossible to be a great cook and have a mingy soul. Yesterday, Luis Weiss proved that once again on her blog, The Wednesday Chef. 

I’ll let you read Luisa’s description of what moved her to auction off her fascinating collection of cookbooks (many are signed first editions). But if you don’t tear up, at least a little, on reading her words I’m betting you’re not much of a cook.  

The auction is truly in the Christmas spirit. After reading Luisa’s blog I threw in the last hardcover copy that I’ve got of my first cookbook, Mmmmm: A Feastiary (1972).

(They only printed 3500 hardcover copies, and they’re almost impossible to find.) I’ll sign it - and match whatever the winning bid is.  

There's lots of great stuff here, and Luisa's throwing in a copy of her own wonderful book, My Berlin Kitchen, to anyone who spends $50. The auction ends tomorrow.

I just wish I’d come up with this notion on my own.  

 

2013 Gift Guide: Put This in Your Pipe

  

I’m kind of surprised they did not write “Ceci n’est pas une asiette,” across one of these Magritte plates, but on second thought it would have subverted the entire purpose.  

Because they are, of course plates. Brightly colored. Endlessly absurd. Entirely amusing. And at $16 apiece ($14.40  if you’re a member of MOMA), they take care of an entire range of people on your gift list. Smokers. Apple-fanciers. Peaceniks. Wearers of hats. Security freaks. Collectors of giraffes. Not to mention anyone who ever saw a Magritte painting and was stopped cold in his tracks. 

Not interested in plates?  You might want to consider this very appealing chalk board:

Order today and you're still in time for standard shipping ($6.95 flat rate) to get your gift there in time for Christmas. Wait til tomorrow, and shipping charges go up. 

2013 Gift Guide: Cooking the Books

Lots of people sell vintage cookbooks, and I spend too much time trolling through the sites. Favorites include Bonnie Slotnick (bonnieslotnikbooks@earthlink.net) in New York and Omnivore Books in San Francisco.

But The Cook's Bookcase was new to me, and I appreciate the quirkiness of the collection. And, I might add, the fairness of the prices.  I can think of at least a dozen people who’d be thrilled to get a signed first edition of a James Beard book - but I’ve rarely found one that I could afford.

 At $90, this signed first edition of Delights and Prejudices seems like a bargain. 

The collection is.... odd.  I’m sure I’ve got a friend who’d love this signed Shirley Bassey menu from Caesar’s Palace ($15).

Although what was the great Welsh singer (most famous for singing Goldfinger) doing on a menu?  

Plenty of great stuff here. (Issac Hayes had a cookbook? Who knew?) Even if you don’t find the perfect present, you’ll have great fun noodling through the site. 

 

2013 Gift Guide: Day Twenty-Two

 

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Past Scents
Years ago, when you could still travel Europe on less than $5 a day, I always made a pilgrimage to the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella as soon as I landed in Florence.  It’s one of the world's oldest drug stores - founded by Dominican Friars in 1221, it opened to the public in 1612.  They make all manner of herbal beauty products, but what I like best is their pot pouri. I’d buy bags of the dried herbs and flowers so I could stow them in my dresser when I got home. The potpouri is said to repel insects, but the truth is that I love the way it smells; each time I opened a drawer a wonderful fragrance came drifting out to remind me of Italy.  

I don’t know when the Santa Maria Novella people opened branches in America, but these days you don’t have to go to Florence to procure potpourri.  It makes me a little sad - the original  shop is so old, so quaint, so lovely.  But the products here are the same, and they arrive packed in these agreeably old-fashioned boxes.  

Lots of people make potpourri; most of it, frankly, makes me shudder. But this stuff is different. The company says this:

“Scrupulously handmade using ancient methods, this incredibly long-lasting, beautifully fragrant potpourri is a full-bodied blend of herbs and flowers (a secret formula), all grown without pesticides in the Florentine hills exclusively for Santa Maria Novella. Each batch is collected by hand, then soaked in essence in enormous, centuries-old earthenware jars, sealed with wax, then aged for several months, and carefully packaged as it has been for centuries.” 

That may or may not be true.  All I know is that the light fragrance wafting through the house always makes me so happy that I’d be deeply grateful to anyone who plunked down $35 and sent some as a present.

Gift Guide: Pigging Out

 An Enchanting Pair of Porkers

 

A pig product of some kind has become de rigeur for my gift guide.  

(In year one it was the gilt piglet bank, above, from Moss in New York. The late, much-lamented shop was as much museum as store.)

Although this year’s offering is not quite so grand, I can’t resist such an endearing pair of pigs. Filled with salt, pepper or sugar, they sit on your table adding an instant touch of whimsy.

I’ve found half a dozen on-line sources (including Ebay), ranging from $30 to $17 a pair; this Wisconsin shop is the least expensive of the lot.  If you have a friend who loves pigs - and who doesn’t?- this would make a perfect present. 

2013 Gift Guide: Day Twenty

Be A Better Bread-Baker

Ever since I discovered Jim Leahy’s no-knead bread recipe (in his book, My Bread), I’ve been turning out home-made bread on a regular basis.  Jim’s recipe takes all of about 3 minutes and produces a great, fat, crisp loaf.

I’ve been using my ancient cast iron Dutch oven to bake the bread, but now I’ve found something better. This beautiful bread dome lets the bread rise higher and rounder.  And it’s such a great looking stoneware pot that it works wonderfully as an oven-to-table casserole when used for stews and roasts. 

I should have mentioned this earlier; in order to get it there in time for Christmas (ground shipping is free), you need to order by tomorrow.  So what are you waiting for?  Any baker would be delighted with this $60 present.

 

 

2013 Gift Guide: Day Nineteen

Holes

Bagels.  Everyone knows that New York bagels are no longer what they used to be. Victims of inflation, they’ve gotten bigger, softer, sweeter over time. While you can occasionally find a decent New York bagel (I appreciate the mini bagels at Russ and Daughters), most of them are pretty sad.

Montreal bagels, on the other hand, cleave to tradition. Their own tradition. Originally brought to Canada by Polish immigrants, they’re bagels of a different sort. Smaller and sweeter than New York bagels, they’re always rolled by hand, boiled in a honey-sweetened water bath and then, more importantly, baked in a wood-fired oven which gives them their character and unusual appearance. The bagels lack uniformity; each one is individual. Some are larger, some darker - but all are delicious. 

The two classic Montreal bagel bakeries each have their fans (including an impressive roster of celebrities). Fairmount is the older of the two (it opened in 1919), but it doesn’t mail-order its bagels.  St. Viatur, opened by Myer Lewkowicz, a Buchenwald survivor, in 1957 does.  The last day to order for Christmas is December 17th, so you still have a little time. 

Bagels are shipped in 4 or 6 dozen units, but you might as well go large since shipping charges are the same. (4 dozen bagels are $30; 6 dozen bagels are $45. Shipping charges are $29.) The bagels keep well - a couple of months in the freezer -  and any  bagel fan would be thrilled with this gift. It's even worth  negotiating the extremely annoying web site; perseverance pays off. 

2013 Gift Guide: Day Eighteen

Go Fish

Even if your friends live near a coast, if they don't live in a large urban city they very likely lack access to first-rate seafood. That's where Browne Trading Company comes in. Rod Mitchell has been supplying sustainably-sourced seafood to big deal chefs like Eric Ripert and Daniel Boulud for many years.  But he also mail-orders his wonderful products to ordinary people. They run the gamut from wild and farmed fish and shellfish to smoked fish and caviars.  Order before 2 p.m., and you can have it for dinner tomorrow.

What to send?  Any committed cook would be happy to have one of the Turbots (pictured above). Highly prized in europe, this mild, firm-fleshed fish is easy to cook but hard to find on this side of the Atlantic. (You might also consider a pair of Dover Soles.)

Best of all, perhaps, this time of year are Nantucket Bay Scallops. 

They're small. They're sweet.  They're the easiest seafood you'll ever cook.  And they're in season now - for a very short while.  I can't imagine anybody being anything but jubilant to find a package from Browne Trading Company landing at their door. 

 

 

 

 

2013 Gift Guide: Day Seventeen

A Different Kind of Cookbook

It's not just that these sweet little books each tackle a different ingredient.  And it's not just that each was written by a really good cook - and that the recipes are wonderful. Or that they're beautifully printed and hand bound. It's also that Shortstack Editions represents an entirely new idea in publishing. 

Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, they've got an ambitious publishing schedule; the first six volumes were published this year, with plans for another six next year. The writers invest by creating the books, and are paid each time a volume is sold.

Falling somewhere between a book, a pamphlet and a magazine, the $12 Short Stack editions make very nice stocking-stuffers.  Especially if you know someone who's obsessed with one of the ingredients. But a subscription to next year's as yet unpublished editions would make an impressive present for a committed cook: all six volumes for $75. It's like those old-fashioned surprise balls: you don't know what you'll get, but you do know that it will be good.