Showing posts with label food gifts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food gifts. Show all posts

Saturday, November 28, 2015

20 Foodie Gifts from the One of a Kind Show


The One of a Kind Show and Sale is back at the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Place and I went for the media preview on thursday morning to check it out.  

I picked out 20 Gifts you can buy for the FOODIES on your Christmas List.

Who doesn't love food gifts?

A one stop shop.  Most of these things are food but there are a couple of other fun things foodies would appreciate.  

Besides all the Artisan foods you can get all kinds of arts and crafts and there is lots of pottery to pick up for people to eat and drink all this food from.

Deck you foodie's halls with all of these goodies at the show.


   FOODIE GIFTS


1.  Fancy Jelly Tree
2.  Better Than Sex coated fruit and nuts
2.  Forbes Wild Foods Mustards and pickled vegetables
3.  Foie Gras Pate
4.  Hot sauces and marinades
5.  Crab and Lobster dip
6.  Macaroon soaps
7.  Monkey Butters - Dark Chocolate Cherry
8.  Distill Cocktail Kit
9.  Shut Ur Pie Hole - Apple Pie in a Jar
10. Chocolate and Caramel covered Apples
11. Hot Chocolate Dippers
12. Multi Flavour Nougat candy
13. Honey Pepper, Tandoori and other flavour Beef Jerky
14. Cheese shape Soap
15. Dehydrated vegetable Framed Art


Non Food - Foodie Gifts

16.  Retro cartoon printed Dish towels
17.  Chef and Cook ornaments
18.  Quotes and photo coasters
19.  Artisan hand made pottery - Not made in China
20.  Recycled Beer bottle glasses





 There are a whole lot of other food treats and really cool artwork that you can pick up as a special gift for those hard to buy for people in your life.  Get a One of a Kind Gift that they will remember.

One stop shop.

One of a Kind Show and Sale

Show runs from November 28 to December 6, 2015
Weekdays & Saturdays 10am to 9pm  Sundays 10am to 6pm  Late night shopping on Thursday Dec 3
#OOAKX15
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Saturday, February 7, 2015

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas for FOOD LOVERS

It's almost Valentine's Day and you haven't got a clue what to get for your Sweetheart right?

Well skip the lingerie because all it does is make them feel like they need to have a perfect body.

Feed them with Love and Yummy things instead.

I'm going to give you a few ideas of things you can get or do for and with the ones you LOVE and they all revolve around food in some way or another.


Here are 10 Valentine's Day Gift Ideas that will get you lots of LOVE for a little bit of money or a little more:

1.     Dinner Reservations to a restaurant that has a Prix Fixe Valentine's Day Menu if you book far enough ahead of time.  It's not very creative but the creative part comes in choosing the perfect restaurant that caters to your loved one's tastes.   Some suggestions for restaurants in Toronto include:

1a.   Susur Lee has special menus at two of his restaurants, both BENT and LEE have Prix Fixe 4 course meals for $95.00 and I can tell you that if you are lucky enough to see Susur during your visit it will be well worth it.  The food and the service at his restaurants is world class.  Susur is the master of Asian Fusion and the restaurants are beautiful.   It's a bit pricey but this is a restaurant to impress someone special.

1b.   THE BEVERLEY HOTEL on Queen Street West also has a $60 per person menu and the Chefs at the Beverley are very creative with their food so if you are looking to try something new then that's a good place to go.

1c.    DESTINGO has a 4 course "Be Mine" menu that includes Aphrodisiacs.  I haven't been there but I have heard good things.

1d.    LUMA at the Bell Tiff Lightbox on King St. West has a 3 course meal and if you are taking the TTC it's a great one stop shop where you can go and have dinner and see a movie in the same building.

1e.    Want to feel like a Celebrity?  How about going all out at ONE Restaurant,  one of Chef Mark McEwan's restaurants in Yorkville.  Their Valentine's Day menu is $100 per person and you can do a bigger splurge and book a fancy room in the Hotel for desert.

Ok I will move on from fancy restaurants now to a few other things.   What if you want to stay in instead, here are a couple of ideas for that.

2.     You can order a Heart Shaped Pizza from BOSTON PIZZA,  it's a charity initiative so it's a good thing and it looks cool.  The pizza's aren't the best in the city but it's the thought that counts here.

3.     If you are a good cook then it's always a good thing to cook your best dish and do the dishes afterward or if you have a little bit of cash to burn you can hire a PRIVATE CHEF and they will do the fancy cooking for you.

4.     You can also set up special monthly delivery specialty item boxes from places like the CARNIVORE CLUB, popular for men,  or FOODIE PAGES has all kinds of curated products, or you can even set up a healthy Organic Food delivery from FRESH CITY FARMS and I have mentioned them before but AMAZING CLUBS CANADA has all kinds of things like Wine of the Month, Cheese of the Month, Chocolate of the Month and a whole lot more.

5.     What if your special someone loves to cook.  I just got a heart shaped candy red LE CREUSET pot that I just love.  It's a pot that you can cook and serve in and it will last forever which is probably more than I can say for some relationships.

6.     There are lot's of sweet things that are outside of the regular chocolate box too.  Although a high quality box of chocolates is always a good thing it's still nice to show that you are original and like to do things a bit different than everyone else.   How about sending a dozen Red Velvet cookies in a bouquet from ZELCOVIA COOKIES,  cookie bouquets start at around $50 plus taxes.

7.     And there are Cake pops you can get for Valentine's Day from the POP SHOP.  I'm going to pick some up next week.

8.    I found a company that will deliver special Valentine's Day Cupcakes to you too. They are called TORONTO CUPCAKES.

9.   What about signing up for a Cupcake Decorating class with your date.  LE DOLCI has special classes all the time and it's a great thing to do if it's a new person in your life or you are getting predictable.

10.   And there are Macaron classes too.
My friend Mardi of EAT LIVE TRAVEL WRITE specializes in teaching Macaron classes but I can see from her site that she is all booked up for a while but you can book a workshop for a future date and give it as a future date.

Ok.. I can probably think of a few more but this should get you started in the right direction.  If you have any other creative ideas that you stumble upon in your research please let me know and I can add them to the list for next year.

I have made it as easy as I can for you by providing the links to these places so that you can save lot's of time scratching your head trying to come up with the perfect gift for your Food Loving mate.

Please feel free to LIKE my Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/starvingfoodie and post any special finds or photos of gifts you purchase from info on this Blog Post.   Or you can just like my Page and you can be notified when I have special events and other special things happening.



I will be spending my Valentine's Day at my friends home.  He has hosted a dinner party for all of his single friends and family for the past few years.  He makes heart shaped bread buns and personalized cookie lips like these.  And he goes all out in the food and the decor and always has little Valentine's Day treats to take home.  I have been requested to make my Smoked Cheddar Mac & Cheese to bring along to the dinner in my Heart Shaped Le Creuset pot.  Although it might be too small if he has invited a lot of single folks.

So get cracking on those gift ideas and let me know how it goes.

I hope you all have a great Valentine's Day whatever you do.   MUAH!




Monday, January 5, 2015

Holiday Hangover


Do you have a Holiday Hangover?

It's the start of a New Year and we are just starting into January 2015.  Did you notice that the ads for weight loss services and products started on January 1st?  There's no coincidence in that fact.   Everyone spends most of December over indulging in Food and Alcohol while being social and trying to keep up with all the social obligations that they have whether it's a work Holiday Party or a Traditional Family Dinner or even just a party with friends.  You either can't say No or you don't want to say No to events and food and drink.  But then the marketers cash in to your guilt after all the gluttony is over and you look at your expanding waistline and shrinking pocketbook and the total lack of energy you have after trying to be everywhere and eat everything over the Holidays.

Are you feeling the effects of a Holiday Hangover?  Here's the thing.   It's not your fault.  Well some of it is but really you just fell into the trap that is set up by savvy marketers.   Starting from our Canadian Thanksgiving in October the marketers start pushing the Holiday Decorations, the entertaining tips, the gifts you need to buy and all the food shows really ramp up all the perfect holiday events that you need to host or attend.   Yes I have fallen into that trap and probably perpetuated it myself as well.
It's hard not to fall into it.  Everyone wants a better life and to spend time eating great food and drinking with our friends and family and enjoying our life.  We are encouraged to make the Holidays the best they can be.   Well it's not always a great time of year for everyone.  For myself it's a rough time of year because I don't have a family and I don't have a job other than this blog right now so the pressure to buy gifts and bring things to parties and host events is high but I end up alone on the key holidays because people spend it with their families.  Depression is at an increased level for a lot of people at this time of year because they just can't keep up or measure up to what's expected in their life.

Then the New Year hits and you are expected to magically shed all the Holiday weight and achieve impossibly high goals by a certain time.  But you still have a Holiday Hangover.   You probably have a huge amount of holiday bills to pay.  If you go back to work you are probably overloaded with work that didn't get done while you were busy attending all the parties.   If you drink you may be getting over the Christmas and New Year hangovers.   Yes you feel like crap in more ways than one and those smart marketers are going to help you fix all of your problems.   They will sell you gym memberships, weight loss services and products and make you feel like your life isn't good enough as it is and you need to change into a NEW YOU.   Yes,  I have been guilty of writing articles about this in the past but this year I am going to tell you that it's not your fault.

As I look around my home and see all the remaining treats from generous friends and even companies and my own cooking and buying of treats for entertaining I realize that it's hard to start your weight loss goals while all of these things are still around your house.   But you don't want to throw them out because people have thought about you and brought you sweet treats or your secret Santa gift exchanges contained treats or you received hostess gifts.  It's really easy to just pick up a gift basket from Costco or a box of Chocolate from the drugstore because it can keep and you don't have to do anything with it.  Who doesn't love chocolate or cookies or candies or cakes?
 I made a few food gifts because I didn't have money to spend on gifts.

I hosted a small party because I realized that I accumulated a lot of food from attending all my food blogging events and I told my friends not to bring any munchie foods but one of my friends still brought a box of chocolate because it's what you think you are supposed to do.   My same friend dropped by on the weekend totting a box of Cinnabons to have with tea.  
So you see that food is still all around you and this is why your New Year's resolutions to lose weight fail a week into January.  It's cold out and you feel like crap and this food makes you feel better right away until the guilt and television reminders kick in and then you beat yourself up about it.

This year my resolutions are to no make a diet and weight loss resolution but to drink more tea with great health properties like Oprah's Chai Tea or Green Tea.   I am also trying to clean up my life by making sure I don't waste food and keeping clutter to a minimum.   My big goal is to get a job that pays enough to live the life I want while still leaving me time to keep up on this blog because I enjoy it but it's not supporting me at this time unfortunately.

I am working on getting rid of my Holiday Hangover and all the after effects of a couple of months of buying and doing things I shouldn't be doing.   But I am going to try and ditch the guilt and just move forward and try and spend less and eat better.

Ditch the Holiday Hangover and the guilt and just keep moving forward.
My advice to ditch your Holiday Hangover is to take more time for Tea..
Drink the good stuff and Detox and take the time to sit back and enjoy it and re focus where you are going in this New Year.

Enjoy 2015 and be prepared to do it all again next year.