Kate's Global Kitchen: Culinary Gift Guide

Kate's Culinary Gift Guide, Part 2:
Wake Up, Eat Up,
and Save the Leftovers!

This is part 2 of 3 columns devoted to holiday gifts for food lovers and cooks. To see the first column, visit Kate's Global Kitchen 12/05/03. Next week, I'll present gadgets and cooks' tools for stocking stuffers or small gifts that pack neatly in suitcases or which can be easily mailed. Please note: Except for cookbooks sold through our links to Amazon, we do not sell these products at Global Gourmet. Look for them at stores in your area, or check out the weblinks to the manufacturer's site for buying information. (Note that most of the prices indicated below are suggested retail prices and the items may cost less at some stores or sites.)

Happy Holidays,
Kate

CoffeeMaker

Capresso Coffee Makers, Kettle, and WaffleDUO
Capresso "mini-s"—$65
Capresso Burr Grinder—$49.99
Capresso WaffleDUO—$69.99
Capresso H2O Glass Water Kettle—$59.99
www.capresso.com

Wake up and smell the coffee, tea, and waffles with stylish gifts from Capresso. Ever drool over the handsome, black-and-chrome coffee makers in a Williams-Sonoma catalog? They're made by Capresso, in various models, and I use several of their products with great joy. Sometimes (like Monday mornings), I let my Capresso Tech jumpstart the day with straight java, quick and easy with a deep, rich taste. For weekend guests, I like to impress them with a hot shot of espresso, a whipped up cappuccino, or just a cozy, frothy latte. And all winter long, I pour the perfect pot or cup of tea, almost instantly, with Capresso's H20 Glass Water Kettle. This cordless, see-thru pot boils water faster than on a stovetop, and it shuts off automatically. By the way, if you're a java-head (or you need a gift for one), you'll appreciate the Capresso Burr Grinder; set the dial to any grind you want, including espresso grind, and you're just a buzz away from perfectly ground coffee.

What to serve with such grand beverages? Crisp, hot waffles, of course. Capresso's Waffle DUO lets you pick between heart-shaped (not just for Valentine's Day) and Belgian waffles. The heating elements are embedded in the reversible, Teflon-coated plates, so the plates are completely dishwasher proof. Good (and tasty) morning!

FoodSaver
$169.99 Vac 1200 model, by Tilia
www.tilia.com (other models and prices available)

You'll want the card to say "open me, now!" when you give someone a FoodSaver vacuum packager. With all the good foods being made and given during the holidays, the FoodSaver is the handiest, most effective way of storing homemade candies, breads, cookies, and for packing away surplus food gifts, including fresh roasted, gourmet coffee beans. Have a stock of nibbles left from your holiday open house or office party? Wrap, vac, and seal in the freshness to save the goodies for another day. Need to marinate in a hurry? Vacuum sealing speeds up the process. Models range from the deluxe Vac 1200, to professional sets at $319, to compact models as low as $79.

Coffee

Allegro Coffee
"Celebration Caffe," $5.99/8-ounce bag of whole beans
"Morning, Noon and Night," $14.99 sampler pack of three 8-ounce bags of ground coffee
At Whole Foods Market, or by mail order at (800) 277-1107.

Give Santa a buzz and a tasty brew to wash down all those Christmas Eve cookies. Allegro is the one brand of coffee that consistently knocks my socks off. Now owned by the Whole Foods chain of markets, Allegro can be purchased in their stores or by mail order. Every year, roastmaster Christy Thorns creates a new holiday blend, called Celebration Caffé, with flavors as complex as the best Napa cabernet. "Celebration Caffè must always be a robust, full-bodied coffee that pairs well with hearty holiday meals and wintertime desserts," says Thorns. This year she's blending Mexican Maragogype (mar-a-go-GEEP-ay) and El Salvador Pacamara (pock-a-MAR-uh) coffees, picked from a species that produces giant beans, giving the blend a distinctive look with a big, rich taste of chocolate, cinnamon-like spice and a slight roasted hazelnut character. Also available this season is "Morning, Noon and Night," a sampler of three 8-ounce bags of ground coffee. Other special blends throughout the year include Sulawesi Toraja, Kenya Grand Cru, and Nicaraguan El Jaguar, among many others, all using hand-picked, hand-roasted beans. The ultimate in a politically-correct-green-sustainable-farming company, Allegro Coffee actively gives back to the communities that farm their beans. Five percent of the sales of Celebration Caffé will go to the nonprofit Coffee Kids; these funds are earmarked to build 100 beehives in Oaxaca, with training on beekeeping and producing honey as a small business, to create a source of income for coffee pickers during the off-season. Find out more at www.allegrocoffee.com; order at 800/277-1107, or buy at Whole Foods.