Please stop giving my favorite gift category a horrible reputation.  Quit shipping the containers filled with processed cheese spreads that are mostly chemicals and the unidentifiable tubes labeled as some sort of sausage.  Extend the protest to include those tree killing enormous boxes that contain a couple apples or pears.  Those of us who live in the north can get apples and pears with real flavor every fall.

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 the mostly chemical box from the mall stand, think about a selection of gourmet cheese from my home state of Wisconsin or wherever your favorite cheeses originate.  Join me in endorsing the thankless labor of goats and cows rather than joining the chemical additive bandwagon.  I would love even a small gift such as that more than the biggest box of the fake stuff that your mall displays.

A beautiful wine gift basket will be a perfect gift for the appropriate recipient.  Just be sure that the person to whom you send it appreciates a good wine.  You see, I haven’t had a drink in years, because I’m an alcoholic.  While my sister would be properly grateful for a wine basket, I would not.  Whereas I know how to chug and pour again, she actually knows how to slowly savor each sip.

In our mobile society, we all have a beloved relative or a dear friend who has moved to some distant location.  Consider a gift of live lobsters or a couple complete lobster dinners.  Granted, this is not a bargain basement priced gift, but sometimes we enjoy splurging on someone especially dear.

While I made fun of fruit gift baskets earlier, there actually are places where you can order a basket of gourmet fruit–fruit that does not grown in my back yard.  This can be a truly thoughtful gift for someone who is into fitness or who has started the sort of logical diet that allows the consumption of fruit.

See?  If you give a little thought to a food gift, stay out of the long lines at the mall kiosks, and hasten the journey of the boxes filled with fake cheese to the garbage bin, which is where they are going to end up if you send them to me.  Join me at home some evening, shopping from the Internet.  I share my real cheese with you, but you’ll have to bring the wine for yourself.

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