7 Valentine’s Gifts for Cooks
Valentine’s Day is upon us, whether you go crazy for the holiday or not. If you have a sweetheart or a dear friend (Galentine’s Day, anyone?) that loves to cook as much as we do, we suggest gifting some of these greatly underrated, simple staples that are useful in every kitchen—for a romantic meal or not.
1. Fun prep bowls – From local, handmade pottery to pretty sets purchased from your favorite vintage store, prep bowls of all sizes and colors can easily be used for food prep and food service. Visit Avec Moi in Downtown Franklin for creative and vintage kitchen finds.
2. Silicone ice cube trays – Hard plastic ice cube trays can be difficult to deal with, especially if you are freezing and storing more than just ice. We like to use ours for creating herb butters from fresh herbs and freezing for future use, or for freezing raw purees of fresh fruits and veggies to add to morning smoothies.
3. Weck jars – Thankfully, glass food storage is having quite the revival. Weck jars are a gorgeous way to store dry pantry items like beans, rice, and quinoa—as well as store leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer. Whether the recipient is an avid canner of foods, or simply likes to store the remnants of last night’s soup beautifully for tomorrow’s lunch, this gift is great all around.
4. A stainless steel, solid scoop – Cookie dough scoop, ice cream scoop, melon scoop… call it whatever you like, but having a durable, stainless steel one in your arsenal can help you serve up perfectly portioned cookies with satisfyingly round scoops of ice cream. They are also superb at filling muffin pans with sticky-sweet muffin batter with less mess. Although they aren’t local, we recommend checking out Jenaluca, a small business that makes killer stainless-steel scoops.
5. Wooden utensils – If those on your gift list love to cook as much as we do, they may love to Instagram as much as we do, too. Thoughtfully gifted wooden cooking and serving utensils replace the passionate cook’s worn out ones, and also might find their way into artfully crafted photos of delicious masterpieces pulled freshly out of the oven. We love these gorgeous ones found at White’s Mercantile and these from Suburbanpallet.com
6. Indoor herb garden – Gifting a small, portable indoor herb garden for use is a welcomed gift to any devoted cook. If your recipient regularly keeps up with his or her own indoor herb garden already, gifting additional seeds to replace spent plants can keep their delicious habit going until springtime planting comes around again. We recommend browsing All Seasons Gardening & Brewing Supply Co. for supplies!
