2024 ‘It’s Not Too Late’ Holiday Gift Guide

A few of my favorite things I’ve given or received this year

Dec 14, 2024

I love a good gift list, especially when it helps me discover something that I know will delight someone I love. Here’s a few of my favorite things to inspire your own giving this year.

For the Cheffy Gardener

Seeds from Row 7 My brother has slipped packs of seeds from this company into our stockings the last couple of years, enjoyed by our family months later as we plant and harvest in the spring and summer. A collaboration between chefs and farmers, the names alone, think Badger Flame Beet and Honeypatch Squash, might even get the most reluctant gardener to sprout a green thumb. Gift set $20, Gift cards in increments of $25
*Note: Due to high demand, it may be too late to get the seeds before December 25^th, but a gift card would be appreciated by any novice or experienced gardener!

Hori Hori with Sheath Is it a knife for gardeners, or a way to garden with a badass knife? When I spotted this at Chateau Sonoma last summer, I immediately bought one for my brother, even if I wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do with it. This hand forged blade is sharp and tough, your weapon of choice to cut through tough roots and slice into compacted soil. Perfect for anyone looking to up their gardening cool factor. $69.99 from Chateau Sonoma

Kits to Kick off New Passions

Banneton Basket and Sourdough Kit For that friend finally ready to take on the challenge of maintaining a starter, these are all the tools you need for scraping, proofing and scoring in one convenient kit. Upgrade and include Sarah Owen’s Sourdough cookbook for more inspiration. Around $33 for the kit

Salad Upgrade, the Burmese Way My friend Serena has recently taken an interest in Southeast Asian salads. She introduced me to a Thai 15-ingredient salad and I returned the favor, introducing her to laphet thoke, or tea leaf salad, the national dish of Burma. Not many of us are going to ferment our own tea green tea leaves as the Burmese do, so buying the harder to find ingredients and mixing it up according to the recipe from Burma’s Superstar’s cookbook is a great way to get your greens on the table fast, with a fresh new take. $27.99 for the book, $17.99 for the salad kit

Serious Food Treats

Dates for a New Generation I’ve wanted to try Rancho Meladuco’s dates since I first read about them on Susan Spungen’s Substack, Susanality. Having grown up in the high desert, not far from where most of the dates in the United States are grown, it was fascinating to read about a new generation who are taking on the monumental challenge of growing date palms organically and packaging them and marketing in a way that feels both reverential to the history and at the same time fresh. When our local gourmet market started stocking Rancho Meladuco’s boxes of plump dates for eating and gifting, I picked up a box immediately. These became an instant favorite in our house and are being enjoyed at this very moment by family on the east coast, a little taste of California from us to them. 2 lb. box from $20

Olive oil from thousand-year-old Palestinian trees I love when friends introduce me to something new! On my birthday, when my friend Missy gave me a bottle of Rumi Extra Virgin Olive oil from Canaan along with several other treats from sustainable lifestyle store, Thread Spun, she included a gift receipt. “You can return anything you like, just please not the olive oil.” She needn’t have worried. A bottle of great olive oil, especially something this unique – made of olives from 1,000 – 2,000 year old Surri olive trees – is like liquid gold. $36 for a 500ml bottle through their website, Amazon or Thread Spun

Pretty LA Cookies Like little bouquets with each bite, the shortbread cookies from Eat Your Flowers by Loria Stern deliver as much for the mouth as they do for the eye. Wrapped individually, they make for a great hostess gift or to keep on hand for unexpected afternoon tea dates. I dropped in on my friend, Saniya, last week and she pulled out a box of the holiday cookies, each bestowed with a miniature wreath made of herbs and pink peppercorns – it was the perfect tiny indulgence between friends. $55 for a box of 12

Gifts to Imbibe

Vintage Liqueur Glasses I love when you order sake at a Japanese restaurant and they bring out a tray of mismatched cups for you to select from. Suddenly you are faced with a decision as to the mood you are in that night. Are you bright or subdued, oversized or petit, symmetrical or quirkily misshapen? When Missy (of the olive oil) expressed an interest in building a collection of different shaped aperitif glasses to be used for sipping sake or liqueurs, I went right to the vintage corner of SoLo in Solana Beach where their well curated selection of glassware is guaranteed gift worthy. For those not in California, a perusal of Etsy or eBay always turns up a few finds, or head to your nearest consignment store. Pair with a bottle of sake and the latest Murakami or Lillet and A Moveable Feast.

Rare Pu’er I know there are some serious tea lovers among you Californiavore readers. I’m delighted to share that this rare pu’er, a compressed tea cake from Bulang Mountain in Yunnan China, is available here in the US for the first time through Bamboo Mist. With earthy, mushroomy aromas, one pinch will last through multiple brews. Savour now or age for years, to watch those flavours intensify. $78 for 7.05 oz.

For those who like to eat their words

Vintage Cookbook: This feels like a golden age for the cookbook store. I wish I lived closer to stores like Book Larder in Seattle or Kitchen Lingo in Long Beach, then I might get to attend book events and cooking demos. In the meantime, most of these shops sell the whole spectrum of food related books from memoir and single subject cooking to influencer publications and classic tomes. My mom just gifted me a copy of Laurel’s Kitchen that she picked up from Vivienne Culinary Books in Portland. This was one of her staple cookbooks when I was growing up. Though the recipes, heavy on the lentils and whole grains, light on seasoning, feel dated compared to today’s healthy cuisine, flipping through the pages is a bit like taking a time machine wrapped in cozy blanket. I can almost smell the whole wheat bread baking. Prices vary.

Make Your Own Cookbook: When I was pregnant, my friends and family all contributed favorite recipes to a book that was bound and published just for us as we were starting our family. I made my friend Val’s Pastina with Zucchini for Orion at least once a week for a year after he started eating solids. Just reading a recipe for salmon in leek sauce or pizza bread, helped me feel closer to these friends, even while we were separated during the pandemic. Our nanny just got married and I am making something similar for her: printouts of favorite recipes from our family plus ones on heavy rotation from cookbooks and online so that she can easily make them for her husband as they build their new home together. This would also be a perfect gift for soon-to-be-grads heading off to college or to their first apartments and jobs. About $15 for binder and plastic sheet inserts to protect the printed recipes plus a little bit of time.

A great biography about the woman who changed the way we eat The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America, is not an understatement. This portrait is surely the fullest telling of one woman’s quiet but firm influence on American tastes in literary books and food. From pulling The Diary of Anne Frank out of the reject pile at Knopf to discovering Anne Tyler and deftly managing the whims of John Updike, Jones was essential to the literary world. From her long collaboration editing Julia Child to making Indian food accessible for the first time to much of the western world via Madhur Jaffrey, Jones seemed to always have had her finger on the pulse of home cooks while also knowing what those cooks would be looking for next, even before they knew it.

M.F.K. Fischer, for those who like to eat but above all, enjoy excellent prose. Long before Anthony Bourdain was having foodgasms over bowls of pho, M.F.K Fischer was telling Americans how to find pleasure in food. That she was doing this during wartime shortages is even more remarkable, and perhaps makes her writing even more important today as many of us marvel at the stubbornly high prices for some grocery items. If gifting, perhaps do a bundle of her classics, How to Cook a Wolf and Consider the Oyster. For more seasoned fans of Fischer, I’ve recently read her book Last House, largely dictated during her last two decades of life in Sonoma. While she meditates on the indignities of aging (cataracts and Parkinson’s disease made writing and reading nearly impossible in her final years), she still manages to find her trademark pleasure in a simple meal and the abundant nature that surrounds her, all delivered with a healthy dose of sharp witted humour.