Holiday gift giving guide

Gift season is upon us again and I’m sharing with you a round-up of a few cool ideas for creative gifting this year.

1. Custom poems from vintage typewriters. My pals started Typewriter Rodeo for the love of word-slinging and they’d love to write you a poem for a friend, co-worker or loved one. You just give them a word, idea, theme or thought and they make magic and will mail it to you so you can gift it. They just extended their deadline for requests to Wednesday this week; get in on this! (I type with them periodically and love crafting poems on the spot, like this one below about nachos.)

photo courtesy of Jo Ann Santangelo

2. Make something out of winter’s citrus peel bounty. Here’s my round-up of ideas of all-the-things you can do with citrus trash, most of which are quite giftable and not too time consuming.

3. Awe local friends and family with a certificate for a meal or monthly project CSA of sorts, where you’ll bring them something you made once a month, like ginger beer or a squash soup dinner and share it with them. Sharing food with friends and family on a regular basis is a gift that gives more than simply meeting just practical food needs or fancy desires, it’s a way to share in the fun part, the actual sharing.

4. Ahem, well, I have another book out this year, one that’s just waiting for your friend’s name to be inscribed in it, plus a handful of pickle and kitchen empowerment paraphernalia. Check out the goods here.

For more giftacular ideas, check out previous years’ posts here and here, or waaay back here. For more ideas and inspiration check out the tag from this blog entitled Creative Gifts.

Kimchi

Photography by Jo Ann Santangelo

For many areas of the country, the cabbage is in! Learn to make your own kimchi in the 2014 Wellness issue of Edible Austin. Fermented foods are full of all sorts of digestive and probiotic benefits, and don’t take longer than 4 or 5 days to ferment. You’ll find my basic kimchi recipe and a recipe for Japanese-style kimchi called kimuchi. Happy fermenting!

Kimchi Bloody Marys

Well the SXSW festival came to a close yesterday here in Austin and the world marches forward with St. Paddy’s Day (I learned that saying St. ‘Patty’s’ day would mean we honor St. Patricia’s Day, thanks to a bit of Irish education from Kaela) celebrations today. This post seemed ideal for folks not into the green beverages for today’s celebration, or for anyone who wants a bit of homemade drunk brunch plus probiotic action.

We finished off the last of the kimchi I made in February (recipe is in the new book!) and the remaining juice in the jar was too good to compost or drain. Hence bloody Marys (vodka)/Marias (tequila) happened.

Kimchi Bloody Mary Formula

1 part vodka (or tequila for a Bloody Maria)

1 part kimchi juice

2 parts your favorite tomato juice

1. Salt rims if desired. (I salted ours with my Meyer lemon salt—not the bath salts, but I made another batch with kosher salt.). Add ice to cups.

2. Use the above formula using whatever measures will fill your glasses. No need to measure, just divide your glass by 4 and pour straight into the glass. If the ice is distracting, then add that last (just be sure to leave room for it).

3. Stir to combine, garnish with lemon, lime, celery and/or whatever pickled goodies you have on hand and sip!

Cheers!