Just a quick one to highlight some offers from good online retailers for foodie gifts, for someone else or yourself! There’s quite a lot of chocolate offers around, particularly useful to get organised ready for Easter. Here you go:
* One of my favourite (and there are a few) chocolate companies, Montezuma’s are offering free postage when you spend over £30 between now and midnight on Friday 19th March, with code CHEEKY688. It has to be Monster Bunnies and a Radical Stack, please!
* Definitely a case of one for them and one for you with Thorntons, as there is a free gift of a 400g box of Continental chocolates when you spend £15 or more. Build up your £15 spend, add the box of chocs (product code 3054) and then add code EST1 at checkout. Offer ends March 21st. Go on, make all the kids, big and small, happy and order them in their own personalised eggs. There’s everything from dark to white chocolate, so every taste should be covered.
* A quick one to act on, but there is free delivery from Urban Outfitters at the moment, until midnight Thursday, with orders over £50. Great for funky kitchens and unusual gifts, like the Soldier Egg Cup & Toast Cutter or the Wonder Woman apron. Come on, lets not take our food too seriously, all the time!
So, catch up quick on some bargains. Or at least some serious chocolate stockholding!
Being of the nosey/curious type, I love looking at the search terms people have put in to get to the blog. There’ve been all kinds of weird and wonderful ones, not to mention some very err, creative, spellings. But this one seemed an entirely appropriate question, and the sort of thing I would want to know the answer to! So, here’s a few thoughts from me:
1. How about seeing if your favourite local deli or wine shop will run a list for you? In fact, I am surprised not more local specialist stores have got into this lucrative business. Sadly, not even Ocado seem to have a listing facility.
2. Thankfully some of the wine retailers seem to have caught onto this, so if you’re foodies who love wine, then this might be a good route for you. As one would expect, Berry Bros & Rudd will run a list for you, to which you can add wine, spirits, accessories, wine tastings and even wine courses at their school. For something with more national coverage, then Majestic also offer a wine list service. They have everything from fine wine through to champagne, beers and spirits, so you could really lay down a very interesting, and quaffable cellar.
3. Natoora offers a really wide selection of goodies from Europe, from fresh stuff through to tinned, cheese through to meat and all kinds of veg. They don’t offer a wedding list service but your guests could buy gift certificates that you could have an awful lot of fun spending after the wedding! As an alternative, check out Forman & Field who also do gift vouchers, and there’s a great choice of stuff that you could spend it on.
5. Not on the High Street is one of my favourite sites, and you can register a list with them. There would be fabulous things for the kitchen and dining room, like beautiful cake stands, stylish coffee machines and funky personalised mugs. There are also some interesting food options as well, with everything from an Over Indulgence Hamper (how lovely to come back from honeymoon to this) to organic chocolate, great oils and interesting mustard. They also stock one of my favourite gifts for a wedding or any other occasion: Adopt an Olive Tree with Nudoand they get the harvest once or twice a year. That’s a real foodie gift for me.
6. I do love my cheese, but yet to find someone with a listing facility. Paxton & Whitfield offer gift vouchers, so I guess you could run your own list and ask for those. You could then spend them as you needed cheese. Or have a look at the Cheese Club from Teddington Cheese (great cheese shop, unlikely location), where you could ask people to buy you one of each theme, which covers selections suitable for St Patrick’s Day, Halloween and Christmas, as well as one for each month of the year. The Fine Cheese Co in Bath also offer something similar, and people could buy you a whole year’s worth of deliveries.
7. You may have also gathered that I have a reasonably big cookbook addiction. Which would have made listing with Amazon a perfect choice for me. It would enable you to explore the far reaches of your food reading and cooking desires. You can explore old and new, rare and not so rare. I guess Amazon is almost like a huge department store now, so you can also list for lots of equipment too. Just don’t forget the books.
So, that’s a few suggestions for a couple who love their food as much as they love each other! Happy listing!
I think it’s probably obvious by now that I have a bit of a thing for cookbooks. Which means they are everywhere around the house, whether they fit the space or not. So I could probably use some of these bookends, both for the practical aspects, but also for the great designs.
I really like the cook ones, and they are too good to be hidden (completely) by the books. They are made from stainless steel, so are going to hold up some fairly heavyweight tomes. For a cookbook loving mum, I would suggest this would make a great Mother’s Day present with a difference. For those who don’t need further food references then check out this slightly Hitchcock-esque version!
There don’t seem to be huge numbers of bookends around, so maybe most people do what I do, and just pile some up the other way! I quite like the idea of them as a gift: different, practical, unusual. Good criteria for a great gift in my book!
I think I can claim this post to have the vaguest foodie link of any I have written so far, but worth thinking about. Those of us who love to cook are probably going to spend more time than the average person with very hot things and sharp things. Unless you are a firefighter or a knife thrower.
Anyway, every food lovers kitchen should have a great first aid kit to hand, and can I make an absolute recommendation for Boots Faster Healing Hydrocolloid Plasters. Just to point out, for those who don’t know, I do work for Boots but my recommendation is unhindered by that, I paid out cash for these, and they are absolutely based on the very rapid healing of a burnt finger, leaving a not very big scar.
First aid kits are the things you don’t think about until you need them, and I would most definitely include these. You might also want to think about burn relief spray, but I’m a big believer in cold water for a prolonged period of time. I’m sure that’s what they recommended when I was in Girl Guides anyway.
John Lewis have some very funky first aid kits, and I particularly love the vintage Beano one. Just remember that there is no good a kit being great to look at if it doesn’t have the things you are likely to need in an emergency. If you’re not sure what you should keep in your kit, there’s a good guide from the NHS here.
So, be safe, but most of all, as we said in the Guides, be prepared! As accidents are waiting to happen, as this fab photo by zappowbang on Flickr shows!
So here we are, 1st March, St David’s Day already. Some of you may know this is a part ex-pat household, with Dr T being my own Welsh dragon, and I have a great many friends over that particular border. And if you haven’t discovered the great foodie things coming out of Wales, then you’ve so been missing out! Here’s my top choices of things you should be discovering:
1. Adra is my favourite source of gifts for the ex pat Welsh friends, whether or not they speak the language. There is a great pride in having things around the kitchen with Welsh words on them. For the cook of the house, perhaps the enamel sign “Cogydd ar Waith“, or for the breadmaker, or eater, the Bara bin. And, of course, who could disagree with the sentiment “does dim i drechu paned“?
2. If you want a bit of a treat at breakfast time, or afternoon tea, then try Angharad’s Anglesey Blackberry & Sloe Gin Conserve. Made from wild fruit from Anglesey, this will definitely perk up a cream tea! Very attractive looking, and there are some other great flavours on offer too. And if you’re shopping on the site, you best try their butter and Bara Brith as well.
3. Give yourself a beef treat with a great piece of Welsh Black Beef from Beef Direct. Deservedly one of Rick Stein’s food heroes, you may well come across these guys at one of the farmer’s markets in the area, or you can order online for next day delivery. Hung on the bone for 3 weeks for maximum taste and tenderness, and delivered fresh not pre frozen, you won’t be disappointed. Perfect for dinner parties if you want a big joint, drop them an email and let them know exactly what you need.
4. I couldn’t possibly mention Welsh food, without mentioning Gower Cottage Brownies. Kate Jenkins is busy rustling up great brownies, and these make a great sweet treat, and a great foodie gift. There are versions with and without walnuts or hazelnuts, and also dairy or gluten free versions, so truly something for everyone. It would appear from her tweets that Kate keeps half the rugby team in brownies. Draw your own conclusions, based on their current performance!
5. I am a bit of a cheese fan (understatement) and there are some great cheeses being produced in Wales. The Snowdonia Cheese Company make some great tasting, and looking ones, like Black Bomber the extra mature cheddar with the tough guy black jacket, or if you want something smokey, then try the oak smoked Celtic Promise made in West Wales. If it’s the blue stuff that takes your fancy, then try Perl Las Blue.
6. As far as Dr T is concerned, there is only one drink worth having out of Wales, but there are also a surprising number of vineyards. The oldest established one is Glyndwr, from all the way back in 1982, and not only is the produce delightful, but they do great bed and breakfast too. Although whether waking up the morning after our wedding surrounded by wine was a great idea for our guests I am not sure! Try the mixed case as a great introduction to what they are doing.
So, more to Welsh food than Welsh cakes and Bara Brith! There are such a great variety of fabulous food festivals in Wales that you have no excuse for not exploring the Welsh food scene. If you need breaking in gently, get the train to Cardiff (big city, other end of the M4 to London), book into Jolyons to sleep and start with dinner at Le Gallois. That should see off a few misconceptions!
There are very vague signs of Spring: mornings are lighter, if I slink off sharpish it’s still light when I leave work, and there are some small green shoots in the garden.
Green shoots are coming!
And in the kitchen all sorts of things change for me. I know that it’s Spring when I start reaching for Bill Granger cookbooks and put away Delia’s Winter Collection. I start craving different things to eat, lots of South East Asian, lots of lighter stuff. What else might be going on?
1. The casserole might be heading back into the cupboard, and the wok might be heading out more permanently. Quick, easy and full of fresh flavours!
2. The grow your own foodies will be busy prepping their fruit and veg plots, as well as working out what seeds to order in. I am really keen on Seeds of Italy, and there are some really unusual varieties of tomatoes and basil, as well as things like spelt and garlic chives. I told Dr T he should be chitting potatoes, but his hearing is not so good and he went a bit pale. If you’re not great with seeds, then order in seedlings ready to go in the ground. I like Sarah Raven and Thompson and Morgan, and I won’t tell your more green fingered friends if you don’t!
3. The pancake loving foodie will be dusting off their crepe pan ready for Shrove Tuesday. The less well co-ordinated will be looking at their ceiling and worrying. The really inept amongst us might choose an electric crepe maker!
4. The globe trotting foodie will be lured around the world to track down a huge variety of flavours. They were probably in San Francisco yesterday at the Crab Festival, and next weekend they could be at Menton in the South of France for the Lemon Festival. And you could head anywhere with a Chinatown next weekend ready for Chinese New Year.
I’ve been in the kitchen quite a lot this weekend, doing everything from baking to cake decorating with Mini Gourmet Girl and making a massaman chicken curry from scratch. Which saw me digging around the kitchen and marvelling at how many things just don’t seem to get used that often, that it’s the same bits of kit I get out, regardless of what’s on the menu.
If I had just ten things, then these would be the ones I think I would be taking everywhere with me:
1. Plastic mixing bowls – love the look of Mason Cash but just too darn heavy!
2. Good knives – I know this is cheating, but I could live with three: bread, small sharp and larger sharp knife.
3. Chopping boards – plural again, but one wooden and one plastic
4. Food processor – not got anything fancy, it’s rather old and beaten up but still does a multitude of jobs
5. Le Creuset casserole – I’ve had this about 20 years and it’s still going strong
6. Spatula – for getting the last bit out of those bowls when baking
7. Silicone bakeware – at a minimum, then the round ones for Victoria sponge, a loaf shaped one and one for cupcakes
8. Scales – although could do to upgrade as measuring on current ones a bit hit and miss
9. Pestle & mortar – still the best thing for bashing up spices
10. Breadmaker – surprisingly, a gadget that gets used pretty much every other day
I’m taking things like wooden spoons as a given in this! But it does make me wonder about all the other stuff! What’s indispensable in your kitchen? And what do you wonder why on earth you bought it? Yes, Flavour Shaker and mango cutter, I’m looking at you!
Just spotted that the Jamie Oliver sale is in full swing, and there are some good things to pick up, either if you need a gift urgently, or to put aside. I’ve written before that I think this is a great range of products, not just name stamping by Jamie but stuff cooks and foodies, big and small, would actually want.
There are scented candles, always a good standby. and canisters of tea (come on, how can anyone not like tea?) It would be boring of me to mention tea towels again but…! I’m also very keen on the kids gardening kits, as getting kids involved in growing stuff is one step away from getting them cooking it, which really helps with the eating of a bigger variety of stuff.
I would say this any time you are buying a gift, but particulary right now with what’s happening in Haiti, but please buy with thought, not panic, and really consider the person you are buying for, that they really will use and value what you’re buying them. If in doubt, donate what you were thinking of spending, and shop another day when you spot something they will really love.
Regardless of the discount, if they don’t love it, it’s not a great buy, and it’s certainly not a great gift! That said, I’d welcome pretty much all of these! There is a free delivery code, AA1W1A, so you could donate the delivery cost you’ve saved!
I’ve written many times about how much shopping I do at Not On the High Street, as it really does have unusual and unique gifts for pretty much everyone on my list. Not to mention a few things for myself finding their way into the basket! And now its sale has started, so the temptation is even higher. Here’s a roundup of the best bargains on offer for foodies:
1. There are some great cocktail kits in a box in the sale, from margaritas to cosmopolitans. Not a massive reduction at 10% but these are a good looking gift, a bit of fun, and will feel incredibly decadent to receive!
2. I’ve written many times about how useful tea towels are, for all kinds of purposes other than the original intended one. There are some very highbrow literary ones in the sale at half price, spanning D H Lawrence to Oscar Wilde.
3. For the mini gourmets, the personalised kids aprons will help to make them feel really special in the kitchen, which might be another reason for them to want to get involved. There are four different designs available, so something suitable for everyone.
4. I know a lot of people are still surrounded by lots of snow and ice, so it’s hard to think of warm, sunny days and heading out on picnics. But if you want to be prepared, not to mention green, then the eco picnic set could be a good advance purchase. There are also some funky Thermos flasks in the sale, to help keep something cool and delicious completely cool.
5. I got a glass cake stand last year, and I love it. If you’ve got a keen baker, then the stand in the sale is really nice. It’s also reduced by 40% and is now just £15.
Just a few things for the foodies! Try not to get yourself too distracted by everything else!
A few more sales have popped up, with some good choices for foodie gifts at better prices. Just remember nothing is a bargain if you don’t want or need it, or won’t absolutely love it, or it won’t invoke the same feelings in the recipient. Here’s a few choices from me:
Cupcake mug from Emma Bridgewater
1. Emma Bridgewater – there is a good selection of seconds and discontinued lines gone into the sale, with some great choices like Cupcakes (perfect for the baker in the house), a Dancing Mice tin (perfect for the cakes) and some almighty mugs in Black Toast for the tea and coffee addict!
Miers is on the panel of experts, so can’t be all bad for foodie needs). The Tavolo cheese grater would make a great gift, and you can never have enough graters. For lovers of good tea, there isa Teapigs gift box with 40% off making it just £8.97. Good standby gift this one. Skip the natural slate cheeseboard though, even reduced you can still pick up a roofing tile cheaper at your local builders merchant. About £13 cheaper!
4. Cath Kidston- plenty of homewares in the sale, things like aprons, mugs, oven gloves and napkins. Pretty good reductions too. If this is the style of the foodie in your life, then worth stocking up on these things, put them away somewhere safe until you need something.
So, shop at discount, but shop sensibly. Buy stuff that will be loved, not just stuff that’s got a big discount off it. And prepare for happy smiles for happy foodies when you finally let them have this stuff!
