Eating with Zoe: Good Gifts

I have been thinking lately about how thoroughly my mother has spoiled me with her supreme gift giving skills. It makes me feel like I can never give anyone else a proper gift, because it just can't measure up to her success. I realized her gifts provide three key components:


1) Something the receiver will get excited about and enjoy making good use of


2) Something that communicates her personal relationship with that person, that she knows them well


3) Something that creates an exciting experience that lasts for a long time as a special memory


That means I've gotten lots of good gifts in my day, and am also always disappointed with myself when I give to others, because the bar in my mind is so high. One might think that this is fairly doable for a mother give such things to a child when they're growing up. But as I considered even that caveat, I realized that since I've left home, there have still been amazing gifts from her. The ones that really stuck out in my mind all had to do with food, surprise surprise. So since that's a bit of a theme for me on this blog, and Mother's Day is coming up, I thought it would be fun to publicly thank her for her gifts of love, and share her secrets with you. Even if you're like me and have trouble giving amazing gifts to others, maybe you can just steal her ideas and take all the credit ;)


The Tastebook
Soon after I got married, my mom started peppering me with questions about my favorite recipes she used to make when I was growing up. This is a difficult question because she was so committed to being creative in the kitchen, that there were few dishes she repeated, she was always too busy trying new and fresh recipes. But it turned out that working hard to remember the special ones was worthwhile, because she was putting together a family cookbook. It took her months (in between a full-time job of teaching and everything else her life demanded), but she used TasteBook to pull together all our favorite recipes and add in special photos related to the people or memories associated with each dish, captions included. Not only to I regularly reference that book for all my go-to-comfort foods, but also I treasure it as a bit of our family history as told through food. 


Kitchen on Fire
Manny and I love to eat and cook together. So knowing this, my mom did some research about Berkeley and got us a gift certificate for Kitchen on Fire, a cooking school in the Gourmet Ghetto, the hub of restaurants that grew up around Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkeley. The experience was SO Berkeley! All the food was fresh, local, and ethically impeccable. The class we picked taught us how to cook a full Asian feast of about 8-10 dishes. And the chef that taught the class did not only teach us how to cook the food or what acceptable substitutes to use, but also he taught us all about the chemistry and physics around the cooking process. It was intellectually stimulating and a delight to all our senses. It was such a fun date. We've continued to benefit from both what we learned there and the memory of the fun experience we had together. 


Epicurean Adventure
Each year at Christmas, my mom asks me what "big gift" I am wishing for. I always have so much trouble with this question, because what I would probably like most every year is a huge stack of books that I'll never have enough time to read through, and so will consequently provide more anxiety than joy. Lose-lose. But my mother is a determined one. So with a little tip from Manny, that being rather poor and stingy, I would like to get to eat out somewhere nice, she put together an "Epicurean Adventure." She did loads of research on all the great spots in the Gourmet Ghetto. She got a colorful file folder, decorated the outside and all the inner tabs, and in each slot she put a relevant sum of cash along with the printed out menus of a restaurant. There were options for everything from sit-down meals, gelato, to fun breakfast spots. We discovered all sorts of neat places in back alleys we never would have seen. We got to discover these restaurants in time to return for fun visits ourselves and with visitors (my mom included) from out of town. Soon after that, our church actually bought a building in that same neighborhood, and we were fully informed and prepared to enjoy all the culinary delights in convenient proximity! We made that adventure last for several months and the benefits lasted for years! 


Thanks, Mom, for all these great gifts. Even when you aren't cooking for me on a regular basis, you're making sure I eat so very well, and feel so very loved! 


Lobsters, what are some great food related gifts you've given or received?