The Bold Italic’s Culinary Gift Guide
’Tis the season for sustainable seafood, organic dog cakes, and a $50 Silicon Valley burger
Holiday gift shopping can be intense, high-pressure, and expensive. The good news? The Bay Area’s abundance of wine, chocolate, and culinary offerings. And in this foodie town, a well-considered food gift can please several people on your list. Check out these ideas from local producers for every budget and price range.
A monthly membership to the Terroiriste Wine Club
Soif, the restaurant, bar, and wine merchant in downtown Santa Cruz, has some of the most helpful staff around, and its well-versed wine buyers run a wine club ($50 plus shipping) that showcases limited handmade wines from regions around the world. It’s the ideal present for adventurous drinkers or those who are looking to expand their wine knowledge beyond the confines of Napa and Sonoma, with past picks from many of the wine world’s most notable producers, such as Weingut Schnaitmann in Württemberg and Charles Joguet in Chinon. Delivery is available across Santa Cruz and the San Francisco Bay Area.
A CSF membership to Sea Forager
Memberships to CSFs, or community-supported fisheries, not only guarantee the freshest locally caught seafood but also help small-scale fishermen, such as Kirk Lombard (a.k.a. the Sea Forager), who are employing ethical practices, avoiding bycatch, and focusing on no-trawl seafood sourcing. Gift someone a share (a package of just-caught seafood delivered weekly or biweekly, from $26), and you’ll be supporting sustainable fishing at the same time. Be sure to make sure that the gift recipient is in a delivery location or has access to the various pickup sites across the South Bay, on the Peninsula, and in San Francisco, Marin, and the East Bay.
A family chocolate-making class with Dandelion Chocolate
Dandelion Chocolate’s new 30,000-square-foot facility offers chocolate-making classes on-site, including a three-hour class for families ($200 per adult-child pair) where you learn how cacao is grown and fermented, get involved in the grinding process, and mold and wrap your own chocolate bars to take home. The workshops book up quickly, so reserve ahead of time to download tickets as gifts, or purchase a gift card for use later.
2600 16th Street (San Francisco) | dandelionchocolate.com
A signed copy of “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” by former Chez Panisse cook Samin Nosrat
The illustrated cooking manual Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat not only swept last year’s cookbook awards, but also grew to become a national phenomenon after it spun off into a popular Netflix series. If the cook in your life doesn’t have the book already, grab a copy for $38 from Northern California’s only cookbook store, Omnivore Books on Food, where you can snag a copy signed by the Berkeley resident herself. Of course, you don’t have to stop there; combine it with other signed Bay Area cookbooks, such as Lavash and Vietnamese Food Any Day, to create a sweet stack.
3885 Cesar Chavez Street (San Francisco) | omnivorebooks.myshopify.com
A date night at Kokkari
There’s no better way to indulge someone than by taking them or getting them a gift certificate to a pricey institution that’s usually reserved for food fantasies and expense-account business dinners. Kokkari Estiatorio highlights the freshness of Greek cuisine at its best, and there’s something — perhaps it’s the open hearth or the rustic decor? — that gives it extra romance. A night to enjoy that flaming cheese, whole grilled fish, and perfect lamb chops with reckless abandon? Now, that’s one delightful gift.
200 Jackson Street (San Francisco) |kokkari.com
The Gundlach Bundschu Mixologist gift set
For the person who prizes a proper drink, skip the charcuterie and cheese in favor of a thoughtfully curated cocktail set. This gift crate ($158 plus tax and shipping) delivers across the country from Sonoma’s Gundlach Bundschu Winery; it features a one-time bottling of the winery’s dry vermouth made from Gewürztraminer grapes, along with assorted bitters, syrups, and barware produced elsewhere in Sonoma and on the West Coast.
Mishka organic dog cakes
When it comes to holiday feasting, humans shouldn’t have all the fun. Starting at $12, Mishka dog cakes are so pretty that they might be mistaken for a creation from one of the Bay’s best pâtisseries. And with organic vegetables, a meaty pâté center (mmm!), and plant-derived agar to strengthen bones and teeth, they happen to be delicious and nutritious too. Delivery is available across the San Francisco Bay Area.
3334 Sacramento Street (San Francisco) | mishkacakes.com
A Chateau Block Vineyard Tasting at Jordan Vineyard & Winery
Gift the California wine lover an experience they won’t forget: a Chateau Block Vineyard Tasting at Healdsburg’s Jordan Vineyard & Winery. Starting at $75, this guided tasting takes place under a big tree on a hilltop in the sprawling Jordan estate and includes a taste of the winery’s Cabernet Sauvignon, a retrospective of Jordan Cabernet that spans a decade, a charcuterie pairing with Journeyman meats, and 360-degree views of the Alexander Valley mountains.
1474 Alexander Valley Road (Healdsburg) |jordanwinery.com
One of La Cocina’s gift boxes
La Cocina, a San Francisco nonprofit that focuses on helping female immigrant cooks establish their own culinary businesses, is the kind of endeavor that epitomizes Northern California’s food activism at its best. Support the incubator and make someone you love a very happy snacker by shipping them a gift box with an assortment of products made fresh in small batches by La Cocina entrepreneurs ($35–$100 plus shipping); I’m eyeing the big box, which includes We Are La Cocina, the nonprofit’s new cookbook.
La Cocina Ferry Building Kiosk at 1 Ferry Building (San Francisco) | la-cocina-sf-store.myshopify.com
The Black Label Burger at Selby’s
Treating someone to the $50 Black Label Burger at Selby’s, the Old Hollywood–style restaurant that opened this year from the folks behind Spruce, is one way to show someone that you want only the best for them. More specifically, that would be a blend of dry-aged hanger, short rib, and chuck Flannery Beef that’s cooked medium rare and topped with Époisses and five ounces of shaved Australian black truffles. For extra effect, order your BLBs with martinis, which are shaken table-side.
3001 El Camino Real (Redwood City) | selbysrestaurant.com
