Buzzabasket

Please stop besmirching the good name of my favorite gift category–food gifts.  Quit sending the boxes filled with processed cheese spreads that are mostly chemicals and the unidentifiable tubes labeled as some sort of sausage.  Quit giving away those fruit baskets that are cushioned with tissue paper in an ugly box that takes up all that space in my recycle bin.  I can find apples and pears that are just as good in my local super market.

Despite my heretical words, above, I love good food gifts.  I love giving them and receiving them.  But when I send a food gift, it is given with thought and is always high quality; please return the favor.  There is a difference, you know, between true quality and the convenience of buying from one of those ugly mall kiosks.  Food gifts deserve at least as much careful thought as that after-shave you bought your dad year after year in your childhood–oops, not a good example, perhaps.

Instead of that big brand name box of gelatinous cheese spreads from the mall, consider a selection of genuine artisan cheese from my home state of Wisconsin or wherever your favorite cheeses originate.  Let’s keep the goats and cows happily employed instead of just putting more chemicals in our food.  Speaking of myself, and I’ll bet you, too, I would much rather have a small amount of a real cheese instead of an overpriced huge box of the fake stuff.

A beautiful wine giftbasket

While I made fun of fruit gift baskets earlier, there actually are places where you can order a basket of gourmet fruit–the kinds of fruit that I can’t find in my own back yard.  This is a terrific gift for someone who is a fitness fanatic or anyone who appreciates the simple beauty that is fruit.

See?  If you give a little thought to a food gift, you can avoid the line at the mall kiosk and save the heavy fruitcakes and fake cheese boxes for other shoppers.  Join me at home some evening, shopping from the Internet.  Just remember that you’ll have to bring your own wine, but I’ll supply the real cheese.