If you’re looking for gifts for the cook in your life, or even if you feel like being a little self-indulgent, this time of year can get very tricky.
Beware of the marketing that demands you need the latest kitchen item or another set of knives. Time to update the pots and pans or add a few more cookbooks to your already bulging bookcase. Major bucks will be spent over the next three weeks to be followed in some cases by a shortage of shelf space, needless duplication of tools and that odd choice garlic press that sits in tour junk drawer.
In the absence of giving a gift card, buying kitchen equipment for a cook can be a thankless task. While a nice shiny new knife made of high carbon triple forged steel may look good in the case, how practical might it really be for the cook in your life? For that matter consider which knives and kitchen equipment you get the most out of every day and then how practical it is to plunk down $300 for an admittedly beautiful and well-balanced knife that you’re afraid to use?
Cooks value beautiful and functional things. They crave gadgets, and the really good ones are committed to continued research.
Cookbooks, subscriptions to trade magazines, coffee table books with gorgeous photography are all welcome gifts any time of the year. The newest line of Calphalon would be a joy to have. I could always use another culinary history book or something on techniques. I eventually do get a chance to read and cook at home and it’s a pleasurable experience when you’re using really nice equipment to do that.
But some of the best and most used gifts I’ve received have been salvaged, handed down or made by a relative’s hand. My father-in-law made a beautiful wooden cutting board for us many years ago. It lasted for years until one day it split in half along one of the seams. I saved both side of the board, and they are still in use today.
This is not just pure sentimentality because the board is well made and still very functional. Each time we use it, we appreciate the history and the thoughtfulness behind the gift.
I have knives gathered from previous jobs, kits and traded with fellow cooks. Copper pans from my mother that need to be re-tinned hang on my kitchen walls at home, some I even use from time to time. Of course it’s always nice to get a shiny new toy but my favorite egg pan is now the one I inherited from my mother, which may have been a past Christmas gift we gave to her!
Cookbooks that were the trend of the moment occupy shelf space, their shiny new spine sitting next to the smelly stained volume that always seems to be the first off the shelf.
If your passion is to give a gift that lasts a lifetime and is used well in the process, there are rules you should follow.
Really observe your cook at work. What do they reach for over and over? The same knife for most jobs? One pan that seems to feed five or fifty? Do they re-wash just to avoid choosing another from the shelf? Leafing through the cookbooks that lose pages like autumn leaves that fall to the kitchen floor? Chances are good that if you can gift in the same vein as the well-used items augmenting or completely replacing a pan, bowl or knife that should be retired then your gift will quickly find a place in the rotation.
Converse with your cook, generally about what they may be missing in their kit. Equipment breaks, knives fall from favor, especially when the cook next to me has a new Wustoff. I may be smitten momentarily but in the long run the useful and used gifts come from reflection, study and a New Englander’s aversion to spending money. All those factors give gift giving more clarity.
What excites your cook? You have to really observe to be right. Items both new and old may make the list. I regret losing the old Castle stove at Harvest back in 2006. Hot, reliable and possessed of an immense amount of character I’d take it back in a heartbeat.
The pasta machine we cribbed for 10 bucks in a yard sale 28 years ago still gets pulled out on Sundays. Sullivan’s pasta machines are a Ferrari compared to my little Atlas, but mine works and it’s mine! My wife watches what I read and has an uncanny knack for choosing books that inspire, challenge and satisfy my curiosity. She mixes it up between history and techniques both old and new volumes. Pay attention to your cook’s longing looks at a knife or pan, for me it’s usually a whim not a necessity.
For my part it’s the gifts that get used that are the ones with the most impact. If they’re versatile and sturdy that’s a plus. If I enjoy the recipes both in print and on the table the cookbook will be a favorite. If the gift reminds me of a tradition, either my own or one that may be universal, is well crafted to last and evocative of time spent with loved ones that can be the greatest Christmas gift of all.
John Foster is an executive chef who heads the culinary program at Sullivan University’s Lexington campus. A New York native, Foster has been active in the Lexington culinary scene and a promoter of local and seasonal foods for more than 20 years. The French Culinary Institute-trained chef has been the executive chef of his former restaurant, Harvest, and now his Chevy Chase eatery, The Sage Rabbit, in Lexington.
To read more from Chef John Foster, including his recipes, click here.