This is a paid-subscriber only edition of Vittles. If you are receiving this then thanks so much for subscribing! It gives you access to the back catalogue of paywalled articles, including all restaurant guides, columns and past gift guides. The paradox of buying gifts for anyone with a hobby is that the more niche the hobby, the easier it is to think of a gift and the harder it is to come up with something that the person actually wants.
I wrote the first guide back in , our columnists wrote it in , and our contributors wrote in in Otherwise, we have a hundred or so more ideas for you here: from Serious Practical Things , to Stocking Condiments , to the most important section, Small Frivolous Things.
I hope you find something equally stupid too. Note: If this very long email cuts off, this guide is best read in full on our website. Give a gift subscription. Monster-themed colander. Frankly, there should be more fun, toy-like items in kitchens. An Urpflanze cabbage lamp. I am a long-time admirer of the brassica-inspired lighting of Glasgow-based Urpflanze — and its Instagram is a pleasing place to look at images of other cabbage-led designs you can submit entries for them to post.
Chilli-themed socks. Socks are a wonderful gift. Baby Tatung steamer. There are loads of cooking gift bundles too. During the pandemic, the environmentally conscious hospitality legend Magali Bellego began fashioning candles out of used wine bottles, breathing new life into evocative, often coveted objects, which carry and bring joy to a great many people only to be tossed in the trash once empty.
Banana split candle. This year you should have the courage to surprise a neutral acquaintance with a highly specific version of an otherwise diplomatic present in the form of a delectable faux food candle from Choosing Keeping. Buon appetito. Psychotropic mushroom baubles. Oat milk ornaments. In the Netherlands, where I currently live, cosmopolitan bougies have been dubbed the havermelk elite , as the journalist Jonas Kooyman puts it, because of their penchant for oat milk, yoga and podcasts.
