Please stop giving my favorite gift category a bad name. Quit sending the boxes filled with processed cheese spreads that are mostly chemicals and the unidentifiable tubes labeled as some sort of sausage. Quit giving away those fruit baskets that are cushioned with tissue paper in an ugly box that takes up all that space in my recycle bin. Those of us who live in the north can get apples and pears with real flavor every fall.
You see, I love food gifts. I enjoy giving them, but I enjoy receiving them even more. But when I send a food gift, it is given with thought and is always high quality; please return the favor. There is a difference, you know, between true quality and the convenience of buying from one of those ugly mall kiosks. Food gifts deserve at least as much careful thought as that after-shave you bought your dad year after year in your childhood–oops, not a good example, perhaps.
Instead of that big brand name box of gelatinous cheese spreads from the mall, consider a assortment of genuine artisan cheeses from some cheesemaker who actually understands what cheese is and what it can be. Join me in endorsing the thankless labor of goats and cows rather than joining the chemical additive bandwagon. Speaking of myself, and I’ll bet you, too, I would much rather have a small amount of a real cheese instead of an overpriced huge box of the fake stuff.
A beautiful wine giftbasket
While I made fun of fruit gift baskets earlier, there actually are places where you can order a basket of gourmet fruit–the kinds of fruit that I can’t find in my own back yard. This can be a truly thoughtful gift for someone who is into fitness or who has started the sort of logical diet that allows the consumption of fruit.
I hope you understand… If you give a little thought to a food gift, stay out of the long lines at the mall kiosks, and hasten the journey of the boxes filled with fake cheese to the garbage bin, which is where they are going to end up if you send them to me. Join me at home some evening, shopping from the Internet. I share my real cheese with you, but you’ll have to bring the wine for yourself.
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