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

[liuzhou]

Do gifts to yourself count? If so, these both arrived over the Christmas/New year week. Delivery was so slow that I had almost forgotten I had ordered them, so they felt like surprise gifts!

 

 

Edited To Add:  Wow! I've been acknowledged in the acknowledgements of Carolyn's book. I did so little. Thanks Carolyn. That is a gift!

Edited December 29, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[andiesenji]

I forgot to mention that my friend Sam the "egg man" gave me a lovely 7.5 pound duck for my Christmas present.  Along with some lovely eggs.

He raises fancy chickens, ducks, geese, game birds etc.

He has one of the newiish "flash freezing" (commercial) units.  It really works - 

He brought me the duck on the Monday before Christmas and I left it in the fridge.  It was still frozen solid on Christmas so I cooked something else.  I did not want to thaw it rapidly because I have had not so good results when I did that in the past.

Yesterday it was finally defrosted enough - although the parts inside the cavity were still frozen but I was able to extract them.

I decided to do a braise (I cooked hundreds of ducks this way back when I was catering) so I made a "bed" of celery stalks and put the duck in breast down for 3 hours at 225°F covered then another hour breast up before applying the orange sauce I prepared during the time it was cooking.

This is immediately after I turned it over so it is breast up.  I used a poultry hook, inserting it fully into the cavity, lifting and "spinning" the bird with just a fork. Simple and safe.

 

And this is the amount of liquid that rendered out of the bird during the long, slow braise.  I consider this one of the best parts of using this method of cooking.

 

 

I then uncovered it  raised the temp to 375°F  and set the timer for 30 minutes:

This is what it looked like.

 

Returned it to the over for another 20 minutes.

 

Done - transferred to a 12-inch platter.

 

And the breasts and legs parted out.

 

The poultry hook works for any big hunk of meat that you have to turn. I have used it on hams, roasts, etc. even on really big turkeys.

Edited December 30, 2016 by andiesenji (log)

[Toliver]

I bought one of my older brothers a Chantry Knife steel (officially, they call it a sharpener but it's really just some cylindrical steels at an angle and on springs). He's thrilled with it.

Then I bought my oldest brother an Onyx Paleta (aka Popsicle) mold, some extra wooden sticks and two books on Paletas/Popsicles ("Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas" and "People's Pops: 55 Recipes for Ice Pops, Shave Ice, and Boozy Pops from Brooklyn's Coolest Pop Shop"). That will keep him busy for a while.

 

Edited to pluralize

Edited December 30, 2016 by Toliver (log)

[quiet1]

If we're mentioning gifts we gave other people, we will be here for a while, this was a cookbook heavy gift giving year for me.

 

Most successful was a collection of 'healthy' cookbooks for my mother, who is on a low-sodium diet. I recruited my housemates and my dad and we all worked through a pile of books at the local Barnes and Noble to whittle it down to books that had nutritional information, mostly dishes under 500mg of sodium per serving, and looked like they would be reasonable edible. (Some of the books look like someone started with a chicken breast and threw the kitchen sink on it as long as the sink was unsalted, the flavor combinations were just weird in bad ways.) We haven't cooked from any of them yet because of holiday-related meals and leftovers, but as soon as she opened them my mom kept getting distracted from the rest of the present opening by wanting to read through her new books, which is usually a good sign.

 

I also gave a few personal interest type cookbooks (one of the Splendid Table ones for my dad, who often listens to the show even though he isn't much of a cook, and a Scandinavian one for my mom that she is reading for interest as much as for recipes, for example) and then my other big cookbook gift was a copy of the Cook's Illustrated Meat book, which I selected after consultation with folks here to make sure I was reviewing a good selection of meat related content. The recipient is my housemate who is a 'recovered' vegetarian - raised vegetarian, started eating meat as an adult - and as such likes meat but has no idea how to select/store/cook/serve it. There are a number of meat specific cookbooks (I spent far longer than I should have reading the River Cottage one even after I'd ruled it out as a gift) but the CI one seemed the right tone and approach. So we will see what happens next time he decides to cook for the house.  (His son ended up buying him an America's Tesf Kitchen book too - What Good Cooks Know - which I suspect is far too entry level for most eGullet folks but does look right in line with what a relative kitchen newbie needs to understand to get the best results in the kitchen.)

 

ETA - can't get Amazon link to work from my iPad for some reason.

Edited December 31, 2016 by quiet1 (log)

[suzilightning]

I gave Johnnybird some dark chocolate covered pistachios, the annual Beach Plum jam from Rea's Farm in Cape May,NJ and a jar of Raspberry Blossom honey from the Cape May Honey Farm.

[Shelby]

I'm late posting about this.  A very special person gifted me a huge box from Benton's filled with country ham steaks and a HUGE bone-in aged country ham.  I mean this thing is awesome.  I knew it would keep for quite a while so it's been resting in a cold place until we could properly give it the attention it deserved.  Well, here and there we've been shaving pieces off of it for nibbles and bites.  OH it's so good.  The note that came with it said to slice it wafer thin and eat like you would eat prosciutto.  The deeper you get into the meat, the more tender it gets. And the flavor is intensely good.  I hate to sound like the food guys on tv, but it is exactly like prosciutto with a bit of a funky (in a good way) taste at the end.

 

Anyway, hunting season is over and Ronnie finally had time this morning to get a slicer and de-bone etc.

 

I now have a huge, luscious pile of prosciutto, some thicker pieces that I think I will soak in water for a couple of days and then simmer in water (got that off of the website) to make a softer ham and three huge ham bones for soups.  This gift will be enjoyed for a long while .

 

I forgot to get a picture before this big hunk was taken out.

 

 

 

[ElsieD]

@Shelby. That is gorgeous!

[suzilightning]

And WHICH holiday are we celebrating????????

 

Shelby .... you can send me a small piece of ham bone for "Friend's Day" to make some soup and send you some back for "Returning from your Friend's Day"

[heidih]

Neighbor showed up with his yearly Hubs peanuts. Interesting prep method. I like them. 

[lindag]

The very nice Mexican man who does my landscape maintenance brought me about a dozen tamales made by his wife.

The were very very good and enough to sock some in the freezer for another day.

Edited December 22, 2018 by lindag (log)

[Lisa Shock]

I got tamales too! A friend of mine has a grandmother who knows I like the sweet ones. She only makes them during the holiday season, and sets some aside for me!

[Anna N]

 

 From my cleaning angel. Shouldn’t it be the other way around – – I give her a gift? She spoils me dreadfully. I found these neatly packaged in the bag with my clean laundry which she brought back on Thursday.  

[Kim Shook]

15 hours ago, heidih said:

Neighbor showed up with his yearly Hubs peanuts. Interesting prep method. I like them. 

Virginia peanuts are unique and the very best in my opinion.  I send some to my dad in Florida every year for Christmas.

 

Cousin and his wife sent us lobster tails.  We feasted last night.

[kayb]

Daughter got a FOUR-POUND box of Esther Price chocolates. Apparently that's a small factory in Dayton, OH. I believe they must have made those chocolates last week. Freshest boxed candy I ever tasted.

 

[chromedome]

If you're ever up this way (Atlantic Canada) you can buy chocolates direct from the Ganong factory in St Stephen, "Canada's chocolate town," a sort of small-scale Hershey PA.

[Kerry Beal]

7 hours ago, chromedome said:

If you're ever up this way (Atlantic Canada) you can buy chocolates direct from the Ganong factory in St Stephen, "Canada's chocolate town," a sort of small-scale Hershey PA.

My ex husband was from St Stephen - he had fond memories of Ganong. I must have been a chocolate snob even before I was a chocolatier. But it’s probably the creams vs ganache thing and the excessive sweetness.

 

 

[chromedome]

Yeah, it's not exactly artisanal. Though they do now have a little shop where they make truffles by hand for the tourists, and for those who are less intimately acquainted with how it all works (ie, those same tourists) I'm sure it's fascinating to tour an actual working chocolate factory. There's an annual chocolate festival there, and they make a "chocolate moose" for the occasion (there's also a dude in a moose costume for people to get pictures with).

 

One higher-skilled position at the plant is the "chicken bone maker." For those of you who haven't been to this vicinity, "chicken bones" are a regional candy made of pink, cinnamon-flavored hard candy with a soft chocolate center. They're basically tube-shaped, with flattened ends where they're cut to length. The name, of course, comes from the resemblance to a chicken's thigh bone when you snap off the ends to get at the marrow.

These are still pulled and cut by hand, as they have been since the late 19th century, and apparently only four people at a time have the necessary skill and experience to make them consistently to spec (presumably they have a few trained up well enough to step in as needed, and refine their skills to the desired level, in case of emergency). Another family business, Robertson's of Truro in N.S., makes them as well, but the Robertson version lacks the intense cinnamon punch of the Ganong version.

 

Robertson's, for its part, is locally renowned for its ribbon candy and "barley toys," clear or red translucent candies in the shape of teddy bears, trains and such. From the name I assume they were once made from orgeat, though that's no longer the case. I have a few bags of each kicking around here to go out into the candy trays for the next week or so, and sent some as a novelty to my step-grandkids in California.

 

On an unrelated grandkid note, we caught the 8 yo picky eater filching leftover Brussels sprouts from the pan after dinner a couple of nights ago. I've filed that one under "great moments in grand-parenting."

[BeeZee]

My gift was not in the form of food/drink but will turn itself into such. One of the guys at my office gives everyone a scratch off lottery ticket for Christmas and I actually won $10. As I am currently out of beer...I see a good use for the ten-spot.

[kayb]

Add one. A rum cake. With, from the taste, copious quantities of rum!

 

[Anna N]

 

 Santa dropped by today.  I am so, so very excited.

 

From the left an induction-ready donabe with two matching serving bowls. In front of those a tin containing an Amazon gift card. Then two very beautiful lidded chawanmushi cups. In front of those a spam musubi mould.  Then two handmade, lidded rice/noodle/ soup bowls.  Not shown because it was received digitally is yet another Amazon gift card.  My cup, chawanmushi  and otherwise, runneth over. 

 

 

 And especially for. @JoNorvelleWalker , a close-up of the donabe and its constituent parts. 

[ElsieD]

@Anna N  That is a beautiful gift.

[MelissaH]

@Anna N, Santa knows you well!

[kayb]

Santa's  initials may be KB. Wonderful gift.

 

[lemniscate]

I got my offset spatula!  Santa must check egullet from time to time anonymously.

[Anna N]

1 minute ago, lemniscate said:

I got my offset spatula!  Santa must check egullet from time to time anonymously.

I think you are very lucky that we don’t all have access to your snail mail address or you might’ve found yourself begging for mercy as offset spatulas rained upon you.