Nutcracker Sweet

Edible gifts That Encourage Sharing

My sister tells me I’m good at giving presents. I hope that’s true, because I do enjoy thinking of what to give. Mostly, I enjoy the serendipity of coming across something appealing and deciding, on the spot, to bring it to someone I love. Here is a handful of gifts for the table, chosen in the spirit of sharing simple pleasures. They encourage you to linger at the table. These are things I bring to a dinner or give as a house gift. I have been known to buy some of them for myself as a treat. One pleasing aspect of them all is that they foster interaction– hands across the table, sharing and talking as the meal winds down. I’ve found most of them in small shops, but of course they can be bought online too. It’s not a long list, and I know it’s late in the season for gift guides, but maybe this will give you a fresh idea, or introduce you to a corner of your neighborhood you haven’t visited before.

Marzipan Fruits

A couple of old-school Italian bakeries still exist in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood. Recently I want to Monteleone’s on Court Street to buy biscotti for a visit to friends for dinner, and I was stopped in my tracks by the marzipan. The pieces aren’t quite as artistically formed as those I’ve seen in Italy (see my first photo, above, taken in Cefalu, Sicily), but they were bright and fun, even if some were really over-the- top, like the marzipan hot dog and the marzipan mortadella. I was restrained, and bought just one orange about the size of a baseball. I carefully packed it and transported it to my friends’ house. Later, after we had finished our meal, I brought out my marzipan orange on a small plate with a paring knife, and my friends and I sat talking, slicing thin wedges of marzipan for ourselves and nibbling on biscotti as we finished our wine by candlelight.

A Clever Nutcracker

When I was a girl there seemed to always be a bowl of whole nuts in their shells on the coffee table at our house. At Sahadi’s on Atlantic Avenue I was happy to find a giant sack of whole walnuts available to purchase by the pound. Why not buy a bounty of them and a brilliantly efficient nutcracker like the Mono Pico (pictured below). It cracks the nuts easily and evenly in half, without leaving a trail of shards. Or find a vintage nutcracker to bring as a house gift along with the nuts?

Hands-On Fruits and Nibbles

Here are a few of other ideas for simple food gifts:

Big Box of Dates

In past years, I have bought these wonderfully packaged, sweet and chewy organic dates for myself as a birthday gift. They’re available from many local boutiques and online shops. Plenty of other date growers are available online too.

I am a date-lover but not an expert, and there is a whole world of fancy date-gifting out there, as I learned at the Doha airport Duty Free shop on a layover last year. These date confections look amazing!

Locally, and if on a lower budget, you can buy this bright orange box of dates from Patel Brothers in Jackson Heights, Queens. I keep one in my pantry to use for smoothies, baking and snacking.

Fresh Citrus

There’s nothing like receiving a big box of sunshine in the middle of the winter. These specialty citrus growers won’t ship until the New Year, but that’s okay. I’m sure you can find others who will. Or draw a picture of a pixie tangerine and give it the card as a gift, with a kiss.

Or, arrive with a basket loaded with fresh citrus, it will always be welcome. It’s especially appealing when the leaves are still attached.

Honeycomb

I had fun wandering the aisles of the Tashkent Supermarket location in Greenwich Village this week. In addition to the above citrus, there was a lot of appealing prepared food there, from hot lunches to dumplings, and I loved seeing the mix of people coming in for the traditional Central Asian foods they were so clearly excited about. I watched one construction worker show his red-haired, freckled co-worker some of his favorite dishes, pointing out the plov, which was in a giant wok-shaped pan. Tashkent market would be a good place to find a few unpretentious food gifts. In addition to boxes of dates and many preserves and pickles, an affordable wooden box of honeycomb from Georgia caught my eye:

One more good thing (or two)

One of the most decadent yet simple desserts I enjoyed this year was in Stockholm at the much lauded hotel Ett Hem (where Greg and I did not stay but did have a very special lunch at the the farmhouse table in their kitchen). We were served a scoop of luscious honeycomb and a wedge of nutty, aged cheese. That was all, and it was fabulous. Why not give honeycomb and a large hunk of astonishingly good cheese?

Happy Peeling, Slicing, Cracking, Scooping and Sharing!