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.

Cyber Monday sales benefit

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone! The time is here, and you obviously have a choice to shop (or not) and where to shop for your holiday gifts. This year, instead of slashing already-low profit margins on the small-batch artisan goods and books in my shop, I was inspired by my friend Natalie of Canoe to share profits from this shopping-tastic weekend with a charity. I’ll be donating 15% of profits from the sales of Hip Girl’s Guide to the Kitchen books and all the pickle design merchandise through midnight tonight to a group fighting for reproductive equity in Texas, Lilith Fund.

Shop now by clicking here.

Thanksgiving reminders

Thanksgiving this year complimented some things I’ve been chewing on in my professional life and work environment lately. I’ve been looking uphill and finding there is always more to do than I can accomplish in the week (both with my half-time job with the farmers’ markets and in my other half life of freelancing and writing). Yesterday’s pie brought me the humbling reminder that though I insist my books’ readers focus on not worrying if things aren’t picture perfect, I still expect perfection (and Wonder Woman work powers) from myself.

I posted to instagram this pumpkin pie, which suffered from a minor landslide on half the crust when I warmed it prior to pouring in the filling. I’m really into pie and even when it doesn’t go smoothly, I still tend to pull off a pretty one. This situation had me pouting at first and grouching at anyone who tried to offer encouragement, then feeling sorry for myself over the pie photo I now wouldn’t take because it wasn’t going to look how I hoped.

While the pie cooked, I coaxed myself out of a mini-pity party and remembered that I wrote these two books focused on dropping that exact same standard of perfection to which I was holding myself. It’s my job to meld together what has slid and what still stands and be proud of what I accomplished, a delicious pie from pumpkins I roasted and pureed. In my worklife, I tend to focus on the pile of things that I didn’t get done or how I wished I’d done something better or differently or had exercised more patience, or, or, or…

Pie is apparently my language for self-reflection and this imperfect little pie is my life. I’m damn thankful for it.

Here are some of the highlights from the day once self-reflection time eased into enjoying the first family gathering we hosted in our new home. What a treasure to share our family traditions all together.

First up, I finally got to watch and learn how my dad makes the kick ass gravy from turkey pan drippings and cornstarch. I’ve had no luck with it in the years I’ve tried solo, but watching him work his magic with it was inspiring and made me feel lucky to have him here to teach me. I’m going to practice with making gravy from the bone stock to pour over the leftovers!

Lucky, lucky me that I married into an Italian family and my brother-in-law brought their traditional first course for any holiday, lasagna. O-ehm-Gheeeee. So delicious. Also, lots of hands and loud talking from the Italian side of the table, the Minnesotan Swedes on the other end enjoyed this all quite thoroughly.

Next up was the walk around the farm to let the first course digest and show first-time folks around the property, aka magiclandia where we now live.

Now, down to business. I made Marisa’s recipe for homemade “canned” cranberry sauce that still has the charming tin can ridges and it was a delight to see all cut up how it was served the duration of my childhood of thanksgivings (thanks mom!). I, of course, took the one with the most ridges to signify the most choice slice of cranberry.

And, as always, the best morning-after potion is a pot of simmering bones on the stove becoming nourishing stock that we’ll use throughout the year (after I pressure can it).

How was your day? your pie?