The Case for Gourmet Gifting

There’s a particular look people get when they realize I am not an easy person to buy a gift for. It begins with hope and ends somewhere near panic at the register.

The truth is I live in a very small apartment. The kind where a new object requires a strategic exit plan for an old one. Add in the fact that I’m picky – about design, about quality, about whether something deserves to exist in my limited square footage – and you see the challenge. I appreciate the thought, truly. But if it doesn’t work here, I immediately want it gone. It’s not personal. It’s spatial.

That said, there are gifts that never miss. Almost all of them are edible.

As I wrote not long ago, a friend recently shipped me a huge box of Meyer lemons from Arizona. Glorious! Another showed up with more Meyer lemons from her California garden. Citrus is the ideal gift. It becomes creamy aioli, is paired with sugar for marmalade, flavors ice cream, and perks up shortbread. It brightens everything and then disappears without needing storage.

Another friend went to Dubai and came back with an extraordinary box of saffron, threads so vivid they practically glowed. A pinch transforms rice into ceremony. It fits in a drawer and carries a whole world with it.

Then there was the olive oil, peppery and green, gifted by one friend who knows exactly how I feel about good bread. The balsamic, thick and complex, came from yet another friend who understands that acidity is a personality trait. And the fennel pollen, impossibly aromatic, was brought all the way from Italy by my friend who splits her time between Rome and Brooklyn. This is how you do gifts. They sit on the counter like quiet luxuries, elevate dinner, and then gracefully vanish.

So maybe skip the decorative objects and lean into the gourmet. If it can be zested, drizzled, shaved, or sprinkled, you’re on the right track. You don’t even need to put a bow on it.