I like to mix up the gifts that give during the holiday season.  For me, it’s really trying to figure out what people actually need, as opposed to what is convenient for me just to give.   One foolproof gift I give the folks who help me in my business in NYC is a case of delicious organic and biodynamic wines, all hand-selected by my pal Scott Pactor from his store Appellation Wine and Spirits.   He mixes up a few bottles, recycles a cardboard case, ties it up with ribbon and even includes notes about each wine so the recipient can learn a bit more about eco-wines.   It’s been my go-to gift now for years.

But with my company growing and more and more folks helping me out in Los Angeles, I thought it would be fun to put together a “give local” basket of sorts.    The above wicker suitcase is a flea market find I recently bought for about $10 that I thought would be perfect for this trial gift.

Inside, I filled it with locally made jams and jellies, pickled vegetables, salsas, homemade pot pie squares and sweet and delicious caramel sauce.    Everything was handselected from a local farm stand house and I filled up the suitcase with all sorts of treats that you would never find in the City of Angels.

Found a little extra room, so I put in a set of mixing bowls made from a biocomposite of crushed bamboo and eco-resin.  It’s a new product coming out this Spring from JCPenney as part of our Simply Green initiative.  More on that later…

But to protect everything, I recycled some bubblewrap I had in the closet and added biodegardable packing peanuts to cushion everything.

And with a strip of burlap to act as both a bow and knot, it’s off to go and be enjoyed.

Tags: Local Food

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 1:28 am and is filed under Food and Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.