Chocolate. Cool Kitchen Tools. Beautiful Beans. Cookies, Cakes and More...

It's the Gift Guide, Part 2. Also, a long-lost recipe. And a nostalgic vintage menu.

It’s that time of year… so I thought I would begin with one of my favorite gifts. Show up with a box of Littlejohn’s Toffee and you will always be welcome.

And now, for a few more gifts….

The Best Way to Open a Wine Bottle
This is my favorite wine opener.
I bought it for $2 at a thrift shop in Berkeley in 1974 and I’ve used it almost every day since.
It has no bells and no whistles: it just works. And it wasn’t even designed to open wine. It’s an antique beer opener.

If you’re looking for a really thoughtful gift for someone who likes wine (or artisanal beer brews topped with corks), you could not do better than a vintage beer corkscrew. You can find them in many antique stores, rummage shops and the like. And there are dozens of online sources at wildly varying prices. Try this one - or this one.

While we’re on the subject of wine openers - my Chefman Electric Wine Opener is still going strong after six years of vigorous use. I have a hard time believing that something I got for less than $20 could last so long.

Cool Tools
If you’re looking for the perfect gift for someone who’s just setting up a kitchen, you could not do better than this entire set of tools from Hedley & Bennett. The company, a longtime supplier of aprons to chefs, has branched out with these thoughtfully designed and tested utensils. One by one I find myself shedding my old tools in favor of these… Should you be considering something for yourself, you might want to think about the silicon ladle which I am constantly reaching for; the tapered lip prevents dribbling and the unusual shape means it can get to the very bottom of a pot.

The artist and former New Yorker editor John Donohue has become our national chronicler of restaurants; this year he’s added Philadelphia to the list. (Other cities include New York, Paris, London, Chicago, Napa Valley, DC and Block Island.) If you know a restaurant-lover, these hand-drawn prints make thoughtful, personal (and affordable) gifts.

Kitchen Sculpture
You know how annoying it is when a cookbook won’t stay open while you’re cooking? I’ve fallen in love with this beautiful almond bookweight, a quiet piece of sculpture that looks lovely even when it’s not busy in the kitchen.

Salt and Peppa
It’s easy to find lovely salt shakers for your table, but finding a pepper grinder small enough to sit sedately on your table is not easy. That’s one reason I’m so happy to have found this Hexmill Tabletop Salt and Pepper set. They’re easy to fill, easy to use (they turn so smoothly), and best of all, the grind is incredibly even.

Elusive Olive Oil
If you’ve ever tasted olio nuovo - just-pressed olive oil - you know how delightful the flavor is. You also know that the bright new flavor doesn’t last very long. Oil ages quickly, and while you are left with excellent oil it has lost that just-pressed flavor.

One of the wonderful things about the nascent American olive oil industry is that we now have access to new oil in our own country. If you know an olive oil addict - and aren’t we all? - a bottle of olio nuevo is the perfect present. You can pre-order the Goldridge Olio Nuovo (it will probably be pressed and shipped in the next week or so). And while you’re on the site, take a look at their apple products; they make a very fine apple cider syrup.

Beautiful Beans
If you’ve been to the state of Michoacan you know how much they prize Flor de Junio beans with their beautiful pink swirls. But here’s the thing: outside of Mexico the beans are hard to find - and they have a short shelf life. The Rancho Gordo people have them right now, and I can’t think of a more thoughtful gift for a bean-lover.

I should note that the photograph above does not do them justice. Here is the poetic description on the Rancho Gordo site: “The bean itself stays whole but you bite into and it seems to melt in your mouth with creamy bean goodness. And yet it’s as light as the wings of a migrating Monarch butterfly! (They go down to Michoacan, you know.)”

While you’re at it, you might throw in this rather spectacular cucharero from the state of Michoacan.

Very Rare Jam
Oishii, as any devotee of Midnight Diner can tell you, means delicious. These intriguing Oishii jams really are. Made from the super-expensive Japanese Koyo variety of strawberries they have a flavor profile unlike any jam you’ve ever tasted.

The Strawberry Yuzu preserves have a strong strawberry flavor with a touch of sweetness and a sharp citric brightness. The strawberry spread, which is combined with bean paste, is denser and truly intriguing. I found myself stirring it into cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, and I’m always coming up with new ways to use it.

They’re expensive and beautifully packaged - which is what makes them such great gifts.

A Life Saver
Three years ago I mentioned a new product that intrigued me: Mill, a recycling machine for your kitchen. At the time I hadn’t yet bought one.

Since then Stanley (every Mill-owner I know has given theirs a name), has changed my life. Solved my bear problem. Cut my garbage down to almost nothing. And made me feel that I’m helping the environment.

The Mill is a serious piece of equipment and it is expensive. But I just bought my son one for Christmas and if you have someone you really love on your list, you might consider sending them a Mill.

The Perfect Date
The Bautista family raise what they call their “seven hot dates” organically in Mecca California. The dates each have their own personality, but all of them are sweet, rich, meaty and filled with flavor. And since dates are having a moment right now, they make a particularly welcome gift. You might throw in a printout of this fantastic recipe for chicken with dates, citrus and harissa.

Favorite Seasonal Treats
I’ve written about all of these before, but since it’s that time of year, I thought I’d remind you about my favorite holiday confections.

Light as Air
Roy Shvartzapel is, by his own admission, crazily obsessive. He’s the kind of person who will spend an hour answering a single question. The kind of person who, when he discovers a confection he doesn’t understand, will spend years figuring it out.

“Panettone,” he says, “defies every rule of baking.” So he hitchhiked to Brescia where Iginio Massari, one of the world’s great panettone masters, plies his art. And begged him to take him on as an apprentice.

When you taste Roy’s Panettone, you will be grateful that he did. His Italian Christmas bread is so gossamer light it seems to evaporate in your mouth, leaving a delicious trail of flavor in its wake and the slight crackle of the crunchy topping.

It comes in many flavors, is absolutely irresistible and crazy expensive. In other words, a perfect present. The Biasetto panettone that Giustiamo imports from Italy every year is all of that as well. I should warn you that both tend to sell out early.

Christmas in a Bite
At Christmastime my German father always came home with boxes of lebkuchen: spicy, chewy, gingery cookies laced with marzipan and orange peel. I adored them, but as New York’s German population became assimilated, the Bavarian bakery he favored closed. We grumpily settled for the commercial kind, which proved a very poor substitute.

Then Sandy Lee returned from a stint in Germany and opened Leckerlee, a seasonal bakery whose main reason for being is lebkuchen. These fabulous confections rely on the classic Nuremberg recipe, which features a nine-spice blend and a dough heavy on almonds and hazelnuts. They’re everything lebkuchen should be—including a wonderful way to bring the true taste of Christmas back to the table.

Visions of Plum Pudding
If you’ve got Charles Dickens visions, you can’t do better than Talbott and Arding’s traditional Christmas Pudding. A family recipe, it’s made with three kinds of raisins, candied orange peel, organic eggs and suet from grass-fed local cows. Lots of spices and brandy too. It’s hard to think of a better finale to a festive holiday feast.

An extra bonus: the crock it comes in is a perfect little bowl; I’ve reached for mine a million times this year, and each time I remember how much I loved eating the robust cake (it really is more cake than pudding), it originally held.

There’s so much to love about this menu, from its slightly pretentious names (fruit cocktail Oporto!), it’s mid-meal sherbet, its straightforward type…. It takes you right back to the fifties.

Persimmons are in season. Briefly. I was just leafing through a 1978 issue of Gourmet, and came across an enchanting description of a wild persimmon hunt. Do wild persimmons still exist in this country? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at a farmers market.

According to this article Diospyros virginiana or “American persimmon” has properties similar to the hachiya persimmon; both contain tannic acids that give them a powerful astringent quality. Apparently if you want them at peak sweetness, you wait until after the first frost to harvest the fruit.

American wild persimmons are smaller than the hachiyas you find in the market right now, but I’m sure any persimmon will work in this recipe. Marion Cunningham always sent me a persimmon pudding as a Christmas present, so this brought back a lot of memories. (This recipe, baked rather than steamed in a water bath, seems more like cake than pudding. Which is, in my opinion, another good reason to try it.)