Chocolate / Sweet Nostalgia / Gifts for the Office / Kid’s Stuff / Good Things in Small Packages / Books / His & Her
When I was growing
up, the big holiday window-shopping event occurred when the Neiman-Marcus
Christmas catalog arrived in the mail. Life always stepped aside while I
lunged for the catalog and tore through the pages to ogle that year’s most
outlandish, ostentatious fantasy gift. His-and-hers giraffes, Lear jets,
matching bathrooms with gold-plated fixtures -- my memories may be vague
on the specifics, but I remember the impact. A gasp, a stopped breath, a
jaw gone slack signaled that my jaded adolescent self still held the
capacity for astonishment.
Anyone can give a gift. It takes some thought, and sometimes some luck, to
give an experience along with it. The outlay doesn’t have to be much; the
presents that have reduced me to silence and awe (or, more frequently,
outbursts of delight, and loud ones at that) have cost surprisingly
little. What’s more important is what the gesture invokes in the recipient
when s/he opens the package.
This year’s gift guide focuses on that moment. I’ve collected items both
old and new with one common theme: the power to induce maximum wow. My
recommendations of previous years still hold true, so don’t overlook the
Holiday Gift Guide and
Food is the Anytime Gift, Parts I
and
II.
Embrace the school of
you-can’t-get-too-much-of-a-good-thing with the chocolate of the
month club from
Lake Champlain Chocolates. The Vermont
chocolatier offers assortments of its luscious products for three, six or
nine months (from $105-360). There is no 12-month plan; the club takes a
breather from shipping June-August because of the heat.
Years ago a friend in the Pacific Northwest introduced me to an
extraordinary fudge made by Brigittine monks in Oregon’s Willamette
Valley. It was to be savored, she insisted, and then she showed how.
Instead of cutting the block of fudge into the usual cubes, she
painstakingly sliced one end into slivers, which we placed on our tongues
and let dissolve in their own sweet time. She was right: a big chunk would
have been overpowering. This plain and simple version goes by the name
Chocolate Fudge Royale. The monks, whose
fudge and truffles pay the bills, also make variations with walnuts,
amaretto, and pecan praline.
Importing chocolates yourself has a certain panache – all the more so when
they taste as stunningly as do
Butlers Irish Chocolates, from a
70-year-old Dublin company that still uses the founder’s recipes. The
price is surprisingly in reach, as the currency converter on every
shopping page quickly shows: The Irish Ballotin, at about $24, contains 28
handmade Irish truffles, pralines and creme fraiche chocolates. A case of
a dozen truffle bars works out to less than $2 a bar; select a single
flavor or a mix of three, for tucking into holiday cards, baskets and
packages.
For the adventurous palate: a collection of exotic truffles from
Vosges Haut Chocolat. The 16-piece,
visually stunning assortment includes milk chocolates flavored with sweet
Indian curry or candied violet flowers and dark chocolates spiked with
peppercorns or the strangely compelling combination of ginger, wasabi and
sesame seeds.
Sweet Nostalgia
Marshmallows have a
potent appeal to inner children. The quality is great enough to override
well-conditioned social niceties and regularly compels one chronologically
grown friend of mine to pick up bags of marshmallows in the grocery store
and, um, well, sniff them.
A singular reaction, perhaps, but just think: What would it do to your day
to receive an unexpected box containing enormous, handmade marshmallow
rectangles, a stack of handcrafted round graham cracker rounds and a slab
of Scharffen Berger milk chocolate? That’s exactly what’s in the S’mores
Galore kit (enough for 12!) from
Tiny Trapeze, a Boston-area producer of
old-fashioned, all organic confections. Tiny Trapeze’s handcut
marshmallows are available in vanilla, chocolate and lemon, though only
the vanilla comes with the S’mores kit.
The
Big Tips Candy Collection gets massive
points for presentation. It delivers 15 classic candy bars (and a coloring
book with their histories; be still, my heart) in an enormous red box
emblazoned with photos of the candy and a portrait of Tippy, a
one-toothed, pointy haired varmint of indefinite species who brandishes a
top hat and cane. As for whether it delivers on flavor, well, to be
honest, that’s a matter of personal taste. (Not to mention the actual age
of the contents, which is not necessarily this month’s crop, based on my
experience.) The collection includes such rarities as a Sky Bar, Twin Bing
and the Idaho Spud, which I had not seen since 1982.
Dylan’s
Candy Bar has alternatives for high visual impact that deliver
more variety, such as a popcorn container stuffed with concession-sized
boxes of movie candies; and a Candy Land bucket teeming with old-fashioned
classics, in small, medium and large sizes.
For nostalgia without the calories, there’s always the touch of grace lent
by a long-lived advertising icon. Say, a white ceramic 29-ounce
combination mug/bowl emblazoned with vintage
Kellogg’s
cereal icons, such as Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, or Snap, Crackle, and
Pop. (By the way, if anyone remembers the verses from the latter’s early
60s jingle, please
e-mail me. I can’t get past, “I say it’s
crackle, a crispy sound, you gotta have crackle or the clock’s not wound”
– and I’m not even sure that’s right.) Or Heinz Ketchup bottle salt and
pepper shakers from
The Heinz Store, which also sells a
regulation length putter with a head shaped like....a pickle.
Aptly named
Divine Delights has won renown for
exquisitely decorated petits fours with moist, indulgent fillings. The
miniature almond butter cakes are available in several office-friendly
combinations, such as the party package, which contains 36 bite-sized
cakes decorated as wrapped gifts, and assortments, in multiples of a
dozen, of either mixed or all-chocolate petits fours.
There’s plenty to go around in
Dancing Deer’s Cake and Cookie Medley.
The cakes are chocolate espresso and deep dark gingerbread; the cookies
are molasses clove and sugar cane lime, with hand-cut lavender scented
shortbread filling out the mix.
El Paso Chile
Company’s “Don’t Come Home” package is a party in a box, with
white corn tortilla chips, white and black bean dips, two salsas, and two
types of spiced nuts. For the happy-hour inclined, the same company offers
a reusable party pump with flavor packets for margaritas or Cosmopolitans
(alcohol not included), as well as a Margarita Chica kit that combines a
galvanized steel bucket, margarita mix, and salt with a pair of handmade,
blue-rimmed Mexican glasses.
Kids Stuff
Instead of giving kids a treat, give them a way to make one.
Glee Gum
produces three kits for making stuff kids love: chocolate, gum, and
gummies. Each kit supplies scientific and historical facts (would you
believe: gummies are made from seaweed?!?), step-by-step
instructions, some of the necessary tools and ingredients, and a list of
what else is needed.
El Paso Chile
Company’s kid kits feature a bucket of ready-to-freeze snow
cone mix, plastic serving cups, and a shovel. Flavors are raspberry,
lemonade, sour apple and cherry; the first three are available together in
a mini-kit.
Good Things in Small
Packages
The appeal of kits and miniatures is not lost on adults, as
Running Press understands. Its catalog of tiny, food-related books in
boxed sets includes The Dinner Party, a book of tips plus “posh” props,
like menus and place cards, napkin rings, and wine glass charms; The
Mini-Gingerbread House Kit, which supplies cutters for the walls and roof
plus two reusable chimneys; The Cocktail Kit, with recipes, drink markers,
plastic monkeys, and paper umbrellas (what? no pink elephants?); The Sushi
Box, which combines recipes with miniature tools (a rolling mat,
chopsticks, a bowl); and The Betty Crocker Deluxe Pie Kit, with tips,
recipes, a pie vent, and two cookie cutters for creating dough decorations
to top the crust.
Or you could create your own book. Running Press'
Special Favors
publishes collectible miniature books with covers of the customer’s
design. Another distinctive, though hardly all-purpose, option is a
personalized romance novel from
YourNovel.com. I
have not yet read one, but the publisher promises to sprinkle 26
customer-supplied details (nicknames, for example) throughout your choice
of 19 titles with storylines and locales susceptible to Cupid’s charms.
The catalog’s latest entry is the snowy "Season’s Greetings, Season’s
Love." Each title is available in wild or mild.
Books
Not food-related, but publications that definitely get your jaw moving are
collectible pop-up books by illustrator Robert Sabuda. His enormously
elaborate works include three-dimensional interpretations of literary
classics such as Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz, which teem with
tabs, envelopes, and other devices for pulling, opening, and setting
wonders in motion: Sabdua’s latest is a nod to the coming season:
Winter's Tale: An Original Pop-up Journey,
heavy on silver tones and the magic of nature.
And I am still irrationally partial to last year’s release,
Merry Kitschmas. It’s chock full of
dementedly inspired holiday crafts, foods, and drinks, none of which you
ever have to make to enjoy.
His & Hers
Oh – and what is Neiman-Marcus’ his and hers gift this year? Just a lil’
old custom
photobooth.
Copyright 2005
Kathy Biehl. All Rights Reserved.