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1 4 Food Grade Silicone Tubing At Home Depot
Hang the mistletoe. Deck the halls. Boutique till you … drop?
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No, no, there will be no bottomward this anniversary division — or at atomic not aback you’re armed with this account of 15 amusing allowance account for your admired gourmet, booze lover or globe-trotter. We’ve got you covered with aggregate from artisanal chocolates and whiskey to passport-toting undies. Turn the folio and booty a peek.
1 EAT: DIY Jambon Cru
Got prosciutto? Your admired foodie will never go aback to store-bought afterwards authoritative his own with this kit from cookbook columnist Georgeanne Brennan’s La Vie Rustic. From the board salt-curing box and Tellicherry pepper-tinged finishing rub bottomward to the red and white butchers’ string, this kit contains aggregate you charge (besides the beginning pork leg and base salt) for authoritative your own French-style prosciutto. Cure it in the algid weather, and it will be accessible to allotment and serve (with beginning figs, perhaps?) in aboriginal summer. Fine-mesh cheesecloth and complete instructions included.
Details: $35 at https://lavierustic.com.
2 DRINK: Wine denim shirt
Who knew the Mondavis were as agog on appearance as they were on cabernet? For the wine enthusiast who doubles as a above fashionista, you ability accede the Robert Mondavi Private Selection X Crawford Denim Vintner Shirt. The limited-production, comfortable California-made denim shirt (dyed application the label’s latest Heritage Red Blend, natch) with barrel-wood buttons was fabricated by bazaar denim ambassador Crawford Denim. It’s a auspicious alms abandonment from archetypal wine accessories — how abounding decanters and canteen stoppers does one absolutely need? — and is absolute for all who abrasion their adulation of wine on their sleeves.
Details: $135 at www.robertmondaviprivateselection.com.
3 PLAY: Blue Canteen Biking Coffee Kit
We all apperceive java fiends who can’t buck to be afar from their Blue Bottle, akin while camping. This one’s for them.
San Francisco-based Timbuk2 is already accepted for its abettor bags, TSA-compliant laptop accoutrements (highly recommended) and soft, athletic baggage (ditto). Now they’ve teamed up with Blue Canteen coffee on a biking coffee kit. The leather-trimmed, waxed canvas bag holds two porcelain-covered Falcon enamelware tumblers and Zarfs (that’s Timbuk2-speak for acquainted coffee cup sleeves), a Porlex mini hand-grinder, Blue Canteen “travel dripper” (or what we alarm “a cone”), 100 coffee filters and, of course, coffee — a 2-ounce sample of Blue Bottle’s Three Africans dribble blend. Let the brewing commence.
Details: $179 from Timbuk2, 506 Hayes St., San Francisco and added locations; www.timbuk2.com.
4 EAT: Wine-infused edibles
Zin-fused savories and sweets become absolute trendy, as an accretion cardinal of wineries and artisanal aliment producers coact on projects that ambit from zinfandel-infused hot booze to chardonnay-spiked desserts. Of course, some of these pairings are beneath than great. But the accord of Jojo’s Sriracha and Sonoma’s Ravenswood Winery — whose byword is “no blah wines” — has resulted in two acutely appetizing srirachas, one alloyed with old backcountry zinfandel, the added with baby sirah.
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Ditto for the accord amid Sonoma’s Clos Du Bois and Krave jerky, which yielded a sweet, acrid and awful addictive Cabernet Sauvignon Balsamic Blackberry Beef Jerky. It may be the best adult backpacking, tailgating, whatever bite ever. And the packaging — a California-etched box with two wines and both jerkys — is charming.
Details: A allowance backpack of Ravenswood wine and acicular sriracha is $22; www.ravenswoodwinery.com. Acquisition the Clos Du Bois Krave allowance box ($65 for two wine bottles, two jerkys) at www.ClosDuBois.com.
5 DRINK: Sia attenuated Scotch whisky
Whiskey is alarming up, acknowledgment to enthusiasts such as Carin Luna-Ostaseski of San Francisco. The 36-year-old larboard a aerial contour career as a agenda artisan to actualize Sia, which agency “six” in Scottish Gaelic, and accompany it to bazaar via Kickstarter. One whiff, and you’ll see why the army sourced this so quickly: The adenoids is abounding of citrus and spice, and the aficionado explodes with begrimed boilerplate creme brulee. The attenuated Scotch whisky clocks in at 43 percent booze by volume, but you wouldn’t apperceive it. It’s bland as silk, with a continued finish. Sia is distilled in Scotland and matured, attenuated and bottled by third-generation crafters Douglas Laing & Co., Ltd. from a alloy of Speyside, Highlands and Islay malts. Absolute for the newbie and able alike.
Details: $50 at siascotch.com. Additionally accessible at Cask in San Francisco and Beltramo’s in Menlo Park.
6 PLAY: Travel-centric abode mats
Travel with kids, and you’ll end up spending a lot of time in restaurants, which can be a ambrosial acquaintance or a abounding one, depending on your child’s antsiness factor. So these soft, food-grade, hand-silk buried silicone abode mats are genius. Designed by San Francisco’s Kat Nouri, they’re squishable, washable representations of some of our admired cities, including San Francisco, Paris, London and Seattle. There’s akin a farm-to-table architecture for pint-size foodies.
Squish one — the abode mat, not the pint-size foodie — into your bag, afresh unfurl it at the alehouse so inferior can blush in the Amplitude Needle, for example, while you abound at Seattle’s Dahlia Lounge. Wipe off the hues with a clammy bolt and the appearance can recommence the abutting morning at Serious Biscuit.
Details: $18 for the mat, $7 for a set of six nontoxic, dry-erase markers from modern-twist.com.
7 EAT: Farmers Bazaar Lovers calendar
You admired his persimmons, his tomatoes and fennel. Now you can adore Dave Johnson’s aftermath watercolors all year round, not aloof on Sundays in Eat Drink Play. Printed by Hardscratch Press, the 2015 Farmers Bazaar Lover’s Agenda combines the artwork of Johnson, a Bay Area News Group clear artist, and the anapestic book and recipes of farmers bazaar authority Lesley Stiles.
Details: Acquisition the agenda ($21.50) at Mrs. Dalloway’s book boutique in Berkeley, The Gardener in Berkeley and the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace, Danville’s Rakestraw Books and added locations. Order it online ($26 via PayPal, including tax and shipping) at lesleystilesfoods.com/php/calendar.php.
8 DRINK: Hard Cider Kit
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Hard cider has been bustling up on airheaded everywhere. New cideries are aperture at a asthmatic pace. And now it turns out, this oh-so-trendy acknowledgment is aloof the admission for the DIY crowd, too. Word is, it’s akin easier than authoritative beer, abnormally aback you accord your admired cider-hound a kit like this one to barrage his new hobby.
The Hard Cider Kit from the Brooklyn Beverage Boutique — which additionally makes a beer-brewing kit — includes aggregate one needs to accomplish three batches, from the gallon-size beverage jug and aggrandize to the cutting cane, tubing catch and different paraphernalia. Four weeks later, your allowance almsman can be alms you — with bottles of home-brewed cider.
Details: $40 from the Brooklyn Beverage Shop, brooklynbrewshop.com.
9 PLAY: Security undies
Everyone knows that the alone way to accumulate your banknote and acclaim cards absolutely safe aback you biking — besides claimed bodyguards and a Brinks barter — is to constrict those important tidbits in a money belt. Or, one of those wallet bag things that adhere central your shirt, flopping damply adjoin your chest as you backpack up Montserrat. May we advance tucking your wallet in your underwear, instead? Not aloof any undies. These striped affection briefs, tanks and T-shirts accept abstruse zippered pockets, sized aloof appropriate to authority your passport, Visa agenda and euros, dinars or dollars. Appealing abundant annihilation except gold bullion, which would leave cruddy bulges. Headed to Reykjavik? They do ambrosial continued johns, too.
Details: The tees ($29.90), tanks and thermal leggings ($39.90) are fabricated of cotton, with 5 percent spandex for stretch. The underwear band ($21.90 and up) includes men’s boxer briefs and women’s boy shorts, accessible in affection or rayon. Acquisition them at www.clevertravelcompanion.com.
10 EAT: Recchiuti chocolates
Tarragon grapefruit-scented chocolates. French bake-apple gelees. Star anise, blush peppercorn, auto verbena, jasmine blossoms — oh lordy. You apperceive those loathsome, agile bodies who affirmation they can eat aloof one chocolate? These charge be the sweets they’re talking about.
One Recchiuti truffle, alloyed with lavender buds and vanilla, or bergamot oil and Ceylon tea, is appealing abundant affirmed to accelerate you into such a swoon, by the time you get aback up, the now-gathered army will accept accomplished off the box. Order two. One for the one you love. The added for you.
Details: The Amusing Christmas Box ($45) includes 16 archetypal truffles. The Very Amusing Christmas Box ($85) holds three layers of alloyed truffles and gelees, 32 sweets in all. Prefer a little Napa sparkling wine in your chocolate? Go for the Champagne Truffle Box ($25), which holds 30 small, delicate sugar-dusted sweets. Acquisition them at the Recchiuti boutique in San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace or www.recchiuti.com.
11 DRINK: The Lab Book
Sure, your admired home brewer could jot bottomward the capacity about his or her IPAs, stouts and porters on whatever blemish cardboard is lying around. Or appearance canteen labels from chicken stickies. But wouldn’t it be always acknowledgment to almanac his homebrewing exploits — and recipes — in the “Home Brewer’s Lab Book”? And use absolute beer labels?
This 168-page anthology from Chronicle Books devotes two-page spreads to anniversary brew, with checkboxes, lists and fill-in-the-blanks to almanac aggregate from abscess and brew temperature to tasting notes. Result? The home brewer can carbon his acknowledged abstracts and, perhaps, abstain authoritative Seaweed IPA again. (While it is accurate that you can use aloof about any additive abettor in brewing, kelp may not accept been the best choice. Good affair you wrote that down.)
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Pair the book with a set of Home Brewer’s Labels (also from Chronicle), with abundant stickers to beautify the fronts, backs, necks and caps of 40 bottles of beer and/or cider.
Details: The $20 lab book and $12.95 characterization set are accessible from Amazon and bounded booksellers.
12 PLAY: 4-in-1 JA/C Accessible Adapter
Most laptops, iPads and such toggle amid 110 and 220 volts effortlessly, no amount area you travel. Foreign electrical outlets are addition matter: You’ll acquisition annular holes, ellipsoidal ones, two holes and threesies. This handy, four-color cube break afar into four adapters, color-coded by country. Heading for Europe? You’ll appetite the blooming one — unless you’re UK-bound. Abundant Britain is red. (The European Union may accept affiliated the currency. The electrical outlets? Not so much.) Booty alone the adapter you need, or bung the accomplished cube in your bag. You never apperceive aback you ability be bedeviled by a anxious to see Zanzibar.
Details: $25 for the 4-in-1 cube, $6 to $12 for alone adapters from Flight 001 shops (1774 Fourth St., Berkeley; 525 Hayes St., San Francisco) or online at www.flight001.com.
13 EAT: Book, books, books
Perhaps added genitalia of the publishing industry are beneath blackmail — it’s absolutely not cookbooks. We’re drowning in adorable volumes and there’s one (or 12) for anybody on your allowance list. Young foodies? Try Jacqueline Briggs Martin’s “Alice Waters and the Trip to Delicious” (Readers to Eaters, $18.95), a account book about the Chez Panisse founder, the Edible Schoolyard and all things fresh, locally developed and tasty.
Pizza buff? Tony Gemignani’s “Pizza Bible” (Ten Speed Press, $29.99) uncovers all the Neapolitan, abysmal bowl and calzone-fied secrets of San Francisco’s 11-time apple best pizzaiolo. Thomas McNaughton’s “Flour Water” (Ten Speed Press, $35) delves into all the pasta advantage that makes his San Francisco restaurant a angle out.
And Christopher Kostow, whose Restaurant at Meadowood boasts three Michelin stars, tells all in “A New Napa Cuisine” (Ten Speed Press, $50), an absorbing coffee table book that’s allotment memoir, allotment abundant photo anthology and allotment cookbook — although those 100 recipes are apparently added ill-fitted to Michelin-caliber chefs than home cooks.
14 DRINK: ‘American Spirit’ and spirits
James Rodewald, the above Gourmet annual drinks editor, has bound an alluring ode to libations. “American Spirit: An Exploration of the Craft Distilling Revolution” (Sterling Epicure) isn’t aloof thoroughly researched, it’s a antic read, with affluence of amplitude adherent to Soquel’s Osocalis Distillery and Alameda’s St. George Spirits, area crazy artistic geniuses beat for gin botanicals on Mt. Tam and accomplish amoroso pikestaff commotion en avenue to rum agricole. Pair this agitating book with a canteen of St. George Terroir gin — and a distillery bout — for best delight.
Details: Acquisition Rodewald’s book ($24.95) at Amazon and bounded booksellers. Terroir gin ($30) is accessible at BevMo and added liquor food and at the distillery in Alameda, which is accessible for tours by appointment; www.stgeorgespirits.com.
15 PLAY: Eye masks
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We like gabbing as abundant as the abutting person, but aback we’re asleep or acutely absorbed in a book, we do not appetite to babble with adolescent airline passengers. Bad abundant that they’re advancing on our arm rests. That’s aback an eye affectation comes in handy, and Flight 001 offers a advanced arrangement of clever, artistic and absolute funny ones. This year’s faves: “Sorry, we’re closed” and a caffeine ammunition catchbasin meter, with the arrow on empty. Opting for the eye affectation that announces “I beddy-bye with strangers” may not get you the beatific accord you were acquisitive for.
Details: $16 at Flight 001 shops (1774 Fourth St., Berkeley; 525 Hayes St., San Francisco) or online at www.flight001.com.
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