Philadelphia Weekly

NEWS AND OPINION

Holidays 2009: For Foodies

Gifts for friends who love a good bite.

By Adam Erace

Add Comment | Comments: 1 | Posted Dec. 1, 2009

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus or a combination of all the winter holidays, food is the common thread, so what better gift to give than one that satisfies the appetite? Below, a carefully vetted collection of food-themed presents to warm the heart and stomach. Should you feel the need to thanks us, we’ll take the Phillies Rooibos.

For the Armchair Barista

IKEA is treacherous enough on a Wednesday, let alone in the thick of the holiday season. Make like Hansel and Gretel and bring a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way out, but don’t leave without a battery-operated mini-whisk that buzzes warm milk into ivory bubbles. It’s not a Faema cappuccino machine, but Produkt Milk Frother whips up a buoyant froth and takes up less space than a vegetable peeler.

Produkt Milk Frother, $1.99. IKEA, 2206 S. Columbus Blvd. 215.551.4532. ikea.com

For the Budding Green Thumb

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The saying goes the same for herbs, so easy to grow even the most accident-prone urban gardener can do it. Companion Plants, an organic nursery in Athens, Ohio, stocks exotic seedlings like licorice flag, sweet woodruff and Mexican tarragon, actually a flowering marigold whose slender spear-shaped leaves taste like anise and gain a deep violet leoparding as they grow.

Mexican Tarragon, $5. companionplants.com

For the Milkshake Maven

Just because the triple-thick shakes inside them aren’t so great should not take away from the engineering marvel that is Max Brenner’s Alice Cup. Fitted with a stainless steel straw, the vessel beckons, “Drink Me” in Creamsicle-colored block letters that pour down an insulating ceramic exterior that keeps your frosty, well, frosty.

Alice Cup, $12.50. Max Brenner, 1500 Walnut St. 215.344.8150. shop.maxbrenner.com

For the Art-Smart Baker

Sliding on cool screen-printed paw protectors is like instant art for the hands. “After years of mechanical drawing, diagramming everyday things just seemed natural,” says architect-turned-artist Sara Selepouchin, who disassembles scooters and stand mixers, burgers and beating hearts in gem-toned ink for her company Girls Can Tell. Selepouchin screens her diagrams onto everything from canvas totes to bottle openers, but the oven mitt seems particularly appropriate for pie season.

Girls Can Tell Diagramed Oven Mitt, $14. Mew Gallery, 906 Christian St. 215.625.2424. mewgallery.org

For the Phillies Fan

Drown your sorrows in a cup of Remedy Tea’s fragrant loose-leaf blueberry rooibos packaged in a limited-edition Phillies tin. All the antioxidants in this brew might actually give us energy to root for the Eagles.

Phillies Blueberry Rooibos, $12. Remedy Tea, 1628 Sansom St. 215.557.6688. remedytea.com