Holiday gifts. What food/drink related gifts did you get?

[Anna N]

I'll start:

 

 

Wow!

 

 

More Wow.

 

 And a turkey carcass. I tell you life is more than good.

 

 

 

 

[kayb]

A gift box from Biscuit Love, a Nashville restaurant, that included two bags of quickbread mix (one sweet, apple fritter, one savory, rosemary cheese) and several jars of jams and jellies including smoky tomato jam, onion and garlic jam, peach habanero jam, peach preserves, strawberry preserves, and something else I forget.

 

Still stockings to unload; I'm waiting until my daughter, who's been ill and who's, I hope, sleeping off a horrible sinus infection, gets up for that. She typically loads me down cool little kitchen widgets.

 

Oh, and an Amazon gift card that I have no doubt will result in something kitchen-y.

[Naftal]

I got a copy of Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

[Tri2Cook]

Quite the nice haul you have there Anna. I think I might feel a bit of fruitcake envy too.  I don't think I'll get much in the way of kitchen or food related items this year but that remains to be seen. We were waiting for the sister in law to get here but if she doesn't show up soon, I'm going to have to turn the kid loose under the tree. I'm surprised she's been patient this long but she really wants to wait for her aunt.

[Anna N]

19 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

Quite the nice haul you have there Anna. I think I might feel a bit of fruitcake envy too.  I don't think I'll get much in the way of kitchen or food related items this year but that remains to be seen. We were waiting for the sister in law to get here but if she doesn't show up soon, I'm going to have to turn the kid loose under the tree. I'm surprised she's been patient this long but she really wants to wait for her aunt.

Yup.  I am incredibly, incredibly thrilled. And I even forgot to mention a gift certificate from Lee Valley which almost always has some kitchen related item that I have a hankering for. Hope the aunt arrives soon.  

[ElsieD]

I have been grousing forever about the lack of a good deep fry thermometer so Santa gave me one.  Included was a pocket IR one.  Also, two OXO ladles to replace my two dollar store ones, and that little knife.  That little knife is made in France and has such a finely serated edge that you can't see the serations.  I did some ham  trimming today using it and it was like cutting into soft butter.  

Edited December 25, 2016 by ElsieD
added the picture, spelling fix (log)

[sartoric]

Everyone knows to give us food (or drink) related gifts. Quite the haul here....the white thing on the left is going to grow watercress.

 

[Anna N]

Tell Us more about the "white thing", please. I have just rediscovered watercress. And what is the little jar of spice? herb? 

 Love those glasses.  

[Tri2Cook]

Nope, nothing food/drink/cooking related from Santa this year. That's a first for the last 20 years or so.

[sartoric]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

Tell Us more about the "white thing", please. I have just rediscovered watercress. And what is the little jar of spice? herb? 

 Love those glasses.  

Not a lot I can tell really, it's a bowl with a plastic insert sitting in a metal frame. No drainage holes, so I figure something that likes water might work. I will find seeds or a plant and report back

 

The jar of green stuff is Cahill Comfrey Comfort "Boneknit".  It's for bruises, sprains, scars and fractures, not that I have any of those he he. It's made by a friend who's a RN and keen gardener, she's hoping to develop a range of products.

 

In the black tall bottle is Rogue Society small batch gin from New Zealand, might go nicely in the glasses I reckon.

[Shelby]

I got a couple of cookbooks and some awesome measuring cups.  Also some chile infused honey which sounds interesting.  Santa gave me a neat electric cheese grater --yay, my hand gets so tired doing that.  Some nice wines.....a gift certificate to Kansas City steaks which Ronnie already used and got some NICE ribeye steaks.  12 of 'em!  AND an awesome shipment from Bentons from a special Santa.  I couldn't believe it.  Bacon, a HUGE leg which is to be used like prosciutto and some country ham steaks.  I'm in heaven.

 

edited to add:  somewhere around here I mentioned that my mom and stepdad sent us a nice big bag of oysters--soooo good.  and Santa gave me some cool rubber type "gloves" to protect my hands while taking out the liner in my IP  

 

Edited December 26, 2016 by Shelby (log)

[liuzhou]

Apart from Californian cherries which came from Chile (mentioned on this thread), I was also given a tin of Danish Cookies made in Thailand. (To be fair, they do say "Danish style")

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[Smokeydoke]

I got a propane blow torch. I can't wait to do some damage with that. Yessss!

[suzilightning]

I got a gift certificate to a store in Pleasant Valley NY I combined it with the leftovers from another one and got :

4 semi boneless quail - Johnnybird's and my celebration dinner on 31 December

a package of venison for stew

some good Hudson Valley cheese - blue and a cranberry soft cheese

and finally a pack of boar ribs......

thank you all

and the package of venison meatballs

 

just was gifted 6 jars of corn relish and 6 of pepper relish John ordered from Walmart..........they came yesterday

Edited January 4, 2017 by suzilightning
because the delivery man just brought them yesterday (log)

[Lisa Shock]

I got some sweet tamales, raisins and walnuts, yum!

[quiet1]

I got a Darto pan I was completely not expecting, a digital instant read thermometer (one of the good ones from Thermoworks) and a timer that can do three times at once. Also some tea and a tea strainer, but I'm not sure if that counts as kitchen related enough?

 

I'm currently pondering how to season the pan - I don't particularly want to smoke up the house with it in the oven. I could do it on a charcoal grill outside?

[andiesenji]

I received a box of Welsh Cakes from The Welsh Baker.  I have already consumed two, along with some lovely hot tea.

They are very good.  

I do have a gift card which will probably be used on kitchen or food items. 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

2 hours ago, quiet1 said:

I got a Darto pan I was completely not expecting, a digital instant read thermometer (one of the good ones from Thermoworks) and a timer that can do three times at once. Also some tea and a tea strainer, but I'm not sure if that counts as kitchen related enough?

 

I'm currently pondering how to season the pan - I don't particularly want to smoke up the house with it in the oven. I could do it on a charcoal grill outside?

 

There's a lot of good info on the Oils for Seasoning Cast Iron thread, and particularly in this linked post that pertains to not smoking up the house. 

 

I dunno about the charcoal. I don't like to cook a steak any other way, and I love my grill, but the temp is hard to regulate. It starts out screeching hot, which is the way I want it for my steaks, but then goes down pretty quickly. I'm sure it could be done with determination, but you'd also get some black soot on the bottom too, probably. I only use pans on the grill that I don't care about much. I find charcoal pretty expensive too.

 

Also, from personal experience in seasoning pans, I must not be running my oven hot enough or with enough excess of oil on the pans to create smoke. I have smoke detectors in the dining room on the first floor and on the top landing of the stairs on the second floor. The first floor one always goes off when I broil meat, and I have set off the second floor one a few times with broiling, but when I season pans, I've never tripped one. I never use heat above 400 F/204 C to season pans in the oven, and I use ultra thin coats wiped off to barely there in multiple coats/bakes. Works for me. 

 

Edited to add:

Of course tea and a tea strainer is food and drink related. If you like tea, we have some very in depth informative threads here on it created by awesomely knowledgeable people on this very subject.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[quiet1]

16 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

There's a lot of good info on the Oils for Seasoning Cast Iron thread, and particularly in this linked post that pertains to not smoking up the house. 

 

I dunno about the charcoal. I don't like to cook a steak any other way, and I love my grill, but the temp is hard to regulate. It starts out screeching hot, which is the way I want it for my steaks, but then goes down pretty quickly. I'm sure it could be done with determination, but you'd also get some black soot on the bottom too, probably. I only use pans on the grill that I don't care about much. I find charcoal pretty expensive too.

 

Also, from personal experience in seasoning pans, I must not be running my oven hot enough or with enough excess of oil on the pans to create smoke. I have smoke detectors in the dining room on the first floor and on the top landing of the stairs on the second floor. The first floor one always goes off when I broil meat, and I have set off the second floor one a few times with broiling, but when I season pans, I've never tripped one. I never use heat above 400 F/204 C to season pans in the oven, and I use ultra thin coats wiped off to barely there in multiple coats/bakes. Works for me. 

 

Edited to add:

Of course tea and a tea strainer is food and drink related. If you like tea, we have some very in depth informative threads here on it created by awesomely knowledgeable people on this very subject.

 

 

Our kitchen has awful ventilation so just about everything stinks up the house unless it is warm enough to have windows and doors open to air everything out. A proper hood is one of the top of the list things to redo. (The kitchen is in what looks to be a porch that was closed in, so the whole thing was done rather haphazardly as far as we can tell. The pipes for the sink go right up an exterior wall with no insulation, too, which is great fun in the winter.)

 

That said, I was thinking of the seasoning methods that seem to call for quite high heat (as hot as you can manage without using a self-clean function, that sort of thing) - 400ish F sounds worth a try. And definitely better than the poor pan having to wait until it's warm enough to have windows open to air out the smoke and smell.

 

I do like tea, although I haven't been drinking it as much as I'd like. (Just poor organization - no good place to keep a nice variety of teas so I've been sticking with one or two old standbys rather than ending up with a box of teas that doesn't get used because it's too hard to get to.) For Christmas I got a couple of flowering teas which I'm particularly curious about since I've never tried one.

[andiesenji]

9 hours ago, quiet1 said:

 

(The kitchen is in what looks to be a porch that was closed in, so the whole thing was done rather haphazardly as far as we can tell. The pipes for the sink go right up an exterior wall with no insulation, too, which is great fun in the winter.)

 

 

There are exterior pipe insulation "tubes" that look like pool noodles only they are black or gray instead of bright colors. The ones sold here come with stainless "clips" that look just like the bicycle clips to keep pant legs out of bicycle chains.  

They are easy to install.

 

[MetsFan5]

Lord I think most of our gifts were culinary based. A light for the big green egg,. BGE cookbook, Adam Perry Lang's "Serious Barbecue", Chrissy Teigan's  "Cravings", Anthony Bourdains's "Appetites" (along with Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw as my husband hasn't read them), a Breville toaster oven, a T-fal non stick 13 piece set of pots and pans, dish towels, oven mitts, pot holders, William Sonoma croissants (more for my inlaws than us but they are good), and the Ray Kroc book.  A nice haul. 

 

  Oh a we bought ourselves a 5 qt Kitchen Aid mixer in Cinnamon. 

Edited December 28, 2016 by MetsFan5 (log)

[gfweb]

@MetsFan5 what do you think of Appetites?

[MetsFan5]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

@MetsFan5 what do you think of Appetites?

 

 

  I love Chrissy Teigan's so I am biased. I haven't read more than a few pages but it has recipes most home cooks could come up with. All of them are simple. The pictures are gorgeous. Sometimes I like cookbooks to read them. 

  Bourdains's "Appetites" references a food board where someone freaked about using a fork to stir scrambled eggs on a non stick pan. I am curious as to what board that was. 

[quiet1]

On 12/27/2016 at 11:15 AM, andiesenji said:

There are exterior pipe insulation "tubes" that look like pool noodles only they are black or gray instead of bright colors. The ones sold here come with stainless "clips" that look just like the bicycle clips to keep pant legs out of bicycle chains.  

They are easy to install.

 

 

Our problem is access. The part of the pipes that freeze is sandwiched between a concrete slab underneath and the floor and cabinets above, so to get at them we'd have to remove floor or maybe come at them by cutting into the exterior wall. Someone just wasn't thinking when they installed the kitchen. We have the bits we can get at insulated, and when it is really cold we leave the water on a bit and aim a space heater into the cabinet under the sink to try to keep the pipes warmer.

 

I did a bit of seasoning of my DARTO pan last night - I think it needs a couple more layers before use, but I'm already thinking maybe I need one size up too. 

[Toliver]

My niece  baked me a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. They're the puffy kind (click here or here for the recipe) and they're delicious. I am portioning them to make them last longer ("yah sure you are!" ).

I also received some Trader Joe's seasonal Dark Chocolate Stars (dark chocolate-covered shortbread stars) and a box of their Iced Gingerbread Men cookies.

And I received a gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond which will go towards something kitchen-related.

 

P.S. if you are ever in the San Diego area, you must go to the BB&B Mission Valley location. It is a 2-story  stand-alone building that used to be a Saks Fifth Avenue that went out of business. It was the first BB&B that I ever went to and, silly me, I thought all BB&B's were the same as this store...wrong! DOH! )

The kitchen department inside is huge. They also have inside a wine and small craft beer area next to a World Market Cost Plus food item area. On the opposite side of the store is a sundries area (body washes, shampoos, foot powder, lip balm, etc).

It's quite an impressive version of BB&B's.