Presents!

Presents!

I think people who love to cook are the best people to give presents to since there are many inexpensive things you can get us and those things will usually end up being used to make things for the giver. So gimme! Gimme! Gimme! In all seriousness, I am the easiest person to shop for since I love to cook and I also quilt and $2.99 fat quarters are always welcome in my Christmas stocking. But this is a food blog not a quilting blog so here’s a list for you.

Best Food Related Gifts I have Ever Gotten:

5. 12 place settings of Pottery Barn’s blue Asian square plates that includes a dinner plate, salad plate, and teacup. All courtesy of my mother’s cousins, the children of my Great Aunt, Ba Yi. It’s certainly nice to have formal china. BTW, one of the best pieces of advice we were ever given was by J’s sister, JDD. She told us not to register at Crate and Barrel for dishes because they had a tendency to chip. So we registered at Williams Sonoma for everyday white Bistro place settings and Pottery Barn for our formal china.

4. Vanilla Beans given to me as a stocking stuffer from J. I hoard them like they were diamonds or something and only use them when I REAAAALLLY need them because I love them so. The aroma that real vanilla beans give to a dessert is incomparable. I simply cannot imagine make a crème anglaise without them.

3. The 200 spring rolls that my mother bought for me at the Vietnamese deli in Little Saigon (in the O.C.) and packed in a Styrofoam ice chest for me to bring home to DC. My mother insists the Vietnamese food is better in Orange County and I’d have to agree. For our rehearsal dinner hosted by my uncle in Great Falls, my mother brought ice chests of Vietnamese food from the O.C. The 200 spring rolls were gratefully and heartily consumed at this year’s post-apple picking potluck.

2. The stand mixer that J’s parents gave to us for Christmas 2002. I use this ALL THE FREAKING TIME! I seriously cannot imagine life without it. Does that make the stand mixer my baby? At what point does it become real like the Velveteen Rabbit because I love it so?

1. Also comes from J’s parents, our dining room table. It was a horse race between this and the stand mixer but having a real live dining room table to have dinner on has changed our lives. I love it when we make a nice multi-course dinner and can set the table. I love how many dinner parties we’ve had on it. And I love the dinner parties to come.