Tasteful Holiday Gifts

Along with bright copper kettles, crisp apple streudels, and schnitzel with noodles, these are a two of our favorite holiday gift ideas for food lovers:

For starters, spice up the holidays with the perfect gift for the food enthusiast in your life with Crowning Cuisine, the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR) 2009 Calendar and Recipe Collection! More than just a calendar, it features 23 women chefs, restaurateurs and sommeliers, along with an exclusive collection of more than two dozen of their favorite recipes and preparation tips.

The collection of signature recipes features favorites including: scallop margaritas with tequila ice, watermelon gazpacho with lime and mint, parsnip vanilla crème brûlée, strawberry lemon napoleons, caramelized onion and goat cheese tart, and more.

With recipes from, and whimsical food-crowned photographs of chefs such as Bonnie Moore of L’Academie de Cuisine, Nora Pouillon or Restaurant Nora, and Odessa Piper, the calendar is an ideal holiday gift for any chef or home cook. It can be purchased for $12 (plus $4 shipping & handling) at www.womenchefs.org. Proceeds from the calendar support WCR’s scholarship and internship programs for women in every stage of their culinary arts career.

And then, tour the world though salt, from the Celtic saline estuaries of France to the deep pure seas off Japan, from the ancient mines of Pakistan to the warm mineral springs of Peru.

The Meadow’s Around the World Collector Salt Set includes 50 salts from around the world, each chosen as the finest example of salt making from its region and culinary tradition.

The set comes with our starter set guide to accompany you in your exploration of the powerful and intriguing ways finishing salts behaves on food to evoke new depths of flavor. Fifty salts will be hand-chosen from our collection of gourmet salts, ranging from daily-use salts from every continent to super-rare and exotic salts. Every effort is made to assure that the Around the World Collector Set of 50 Salts includes some of the most distinctive, interesting, and delicious salt in the world. See the full list of salts and more information here.

The Meadow’s World Salt Tour ($298) is available exclusively from The Meadow at www.atthemeadow.com. Also, look for owners Mark and Jennifer Bitterman’s book, Salt to Taste, to be published fall 2010 by Running Press.