Thursday, December 19, 2013

Holiday Gift Guide for Food Enthusiasts

The good thing about gift-giving to food people is that they always know what they want - as long as it’s something delicious or things that can make said deliciousness! Here are a few can’t-miss gifts for your foodie peeps
Knives and Knife Sharpening Lessons
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You know that saying, ‘teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for life?’ Same goes with your food buddy. A high quality chef’s knife is THE most important tool in the kitchen. But that tool needs constant upkeep.  No matter how expensive, with use knives go dull. Dull knives are not only useless, they also dangerous. So throw in some knife sharpening lessons and your friend will always think of you when he/she’s cooking.

Vitamix

In the world of kitchen tools, the Vitamix is a god. Sure you can use it to make smoothies or for the usual blender duties like chop or dice, the magic here is in the thermal component. With this baby you can make both hot soups or frozen desserts! Not to it’s one of the quickest ways to make sauces. Give someone this machine and be expected to get invited to dinner often!


Immersion Circulator

Wanna cook like a professional chef? Then grab one of these guys. Sous vide cooking has been around for a long time but now you too can cook meat and vegetables perfectly. Just seal whatever you’re cooking into a vacuum pouch, set the temperature and walk away! It doesn’t matter what you’re cooking, it will be done to the perfect temperature every time. Now you too can cook like a Top Chef!


Wine Preservation Systems

With the cooking done, it’s time to move on to wine. Even though most of you will opt to just “finish the bottle,” there will be times when you want to savor that special vintage for later consumption. So the best thing to do is find a way to preserve it. There are many different kinds of systems out there, some suck the air out of the bottle, some dump the whole thing into a special container, and some even pour the wine without opening the bottle! I recommend what the professionals use. The Corvina 1000. This device inserts a needle into the cork and taps the wine out without breaking the seal. This way your wine is never exposed to outside oxygen! It is a little on the expensive side, so save this present for someone special.

Bitters

Tired of paying $15 for an “artisan” cocktail? Forget that! All it takes if a few box sets of bitter and you too can “mix” superior deliciousness! My favorites are from Fee Brothers. They have a wide range of sizes and flavors. Everything from cherry to chocolate to celery! Trust me, this was one of the best presents I’ve ever received. Your friend will have a great time mixing and matching different flavors to create the most unique drinks. Now all they need to be a “mixologist” is a mustache, a plaid shirt, and some suspenders!

Lucky Peach. The Mind of A Chef.

Hey you gotta feed the mind as well as the body right? Sure you can go out there and hunt for the latest and trendiest cookbooks, but you know they’ll never use it anyways. Instead, order them a subscription of David Chang’s culinary magazine, Lucky Peach. It’s a quarterly so 4 times a year your friend will get to enjoy recipes and essays from some of the biggest and most accomplished chefs/writer in the food world. To top it off, get them the DVD of The Mind of A Chef, where you get to (figuratively) find out what makes great chefs like David Chang, Sean Brock, and Amy Bloomfield tick! 

There you have it! From cooking to drinking, these 6 things will make any food enthusiast as happy as an Ipswitch Clam!!

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