Give the gift of a nice ingredient
What do you give the person who has everything? Something to use in the kitchen. You can’t go wrong. Here are some of my ideas!
From pennies to premium
There are lots of little additions to your kitchen that could elevate your home cooking very quickly and easily, but some are pricey, some are maybe slightly harder to come by, especially if you want a good quality version, and some are both. It struck me recently that actually, this is the perfect gift. Often it’s hard to know what to get people for birthdays and holidays, either because you don’t know what they would like, or you feel like they have everything, or could get what they need themselves, and you don’t want to mess it up for them.
But that’s the great thing about giving a nice ingredient. It can’t really go very wrong. Either, it’s something they use, in which case, fantastic! Now they have some more. Or it’s something more rarely used by the recipient, and you’ve now inspired them! If you want to make it even more personal, you can add a nice little note with your favourite recipe using the ingredient you’ve given them. What a thoughtful gift, right? Maybe even a conversation starter! This is a great idea for Secret Santa or other similar situations like that, where you have a set budget and often need to give a gift to someone whose tastes you may not know very well. The one thing you may want to check first is whether they have any allergies, though!
Here are some of my ideas of what ingredients you can gift someone:
Vanilla pods (feels much more luxurious than using vanilla extract, and they often come in really nice jars!)
Good quality honey or syrup
Nuts or seeds
Saffron
Nooch (nutritional yeast)
Pink Himalayan Salt (looks nice too!)
Cocoa butter or cocoa powder (check out my homemade chocolate!)
A spicy sauce!
Sourdough discard, so they can have their own starter!
These are just some ideas, I’d love to hear yours too! Of course, another lovely gift and one that I should maybe encourage on this blog is to make something to give to people, which you can of course do. But giving an ingredient gives a lot of freedom, takes the pressure of both giver and recipient but is still thoughtful and unique.
The above (or anything you want to add/take away) can also be a list of ideas of what to tell people that you would like, if you (like me) never know what to say to people when Christmas or your birthday comes around. An ingredient gift can be pennies or premium or anything in between, so there’s lots of room to play here depending on the occasion and gift.
Let me know what you think and what you would add to the list in a comment below!
