Forget the supermarket staples in the more conventional grow-your-own kits and go for something a bit more special, like a setup for growing cloudlike lion’s mane ($27.99), pearly peach-pink oyster mushrooms ($19.99), or spindly, tentacular reishi ($25.99). This year, let us embrace that which we cannot understand, with a mushroom-growing set that brings the exquisite strangeness of the fungal world into our lives and, hopefully, makes for a nice little meal as well. Perhaps no earthly organism is more fascinating or more horrifying than the mushroom, a living thing whose mode of life-invisible spores! Mysterious underground mycelial networks!-somehow eludes the grasp of our feeble human minds. Not just another bowl, set of napkins, saltshaker, or coffee pot but a rainbow-splattered enamelware bowl ($26) made by artisans in Turkey wavy-lined napkins block-printed in Rajasthan, India ($96 for six) minimalist salt-and-pepper pots hewn in Dublin from Irish beech ($51.16) a French press made of amber borosilicate glass ($85) that doubles as a time machine to the nineteen-seventies. Not just a rice mold but a rice mold shaped like an otter ($17), who floats peacefully in your bowl of curry or soup while holding his favorite shell. Not just an angled spatula-spoon hybrid but an angled spatula-spoon hybrid made of cherrywood that glows like sunlit honey ($14), made by West Virginia’s Allegheny Treenware-and, charmingly, available in versions for both right- and left-handed cooks. When it comes to giving someone a functional gift, the rule is that it must either perform its function in a new and glorious way-not just a butter knife but a butter knife whose edge is perforated with tiny apertures that turn even the hardest brick of the stuff into soft, spreadable ribbons ($24)-or it needs to bring form to the table in a major way-not just a butter knife but a hand-formed, milky-glazed ceramic butter knife made in Japan by the artist Sumiko Dougami ($14). Tools That Work Better, or at Least Look Better Prices listed below are accurate as of publication but may fluctuate over time. Consider, too, a present both personal and local: your favorite cafés, bars, and restaurants almost certainly have coffee mugs, T-shirts, tote bags, and bottles of signature sauce for sale, and nothing wins Christmas morning like reminding friends and loved ones of good times past, and good times to come. You’ll find gift ideas here for people who cook or eat-which is to say, gift ideas for everyone. I could give you this lovely little thing any day of the year, sure, but why not have it come wrapped (in all senses) in the holidays? This year, as in all years, I urge you to give gifts that are either tremendously beautiful, tremendously useful, or tremendously absurd-anything less is a missed opportunity. Then again, the pointlessness is part of the point. The cutthroat, sub-rosa competition of who will out-gift whom, whether by money spent (the amateur’s yardstick) or by delight inspired (the true measure of a gift). The silly little ritual of purchase, concealment, adornment, and surprise. Naturally, we are all, every one of us, good and sober citizens who recognize the consumerist folly of giving holiday presents.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |