Sunshine + Microbes Holiday Gift Guide!
Issue No. 22
In this week’s Sunshine + Microbes, we celebrate good times — come on! 🎄🕎🎁🎆Plus, some thoughts on how to inspire in 2020 and why we always save room for dessert.
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Tis the season, so — with the help of many readers who sent in awesome suggestions — we’ve compiled a pretty fabulous gift guide focused on eating, cooking, and living that zero waste life.
The guide definitely skews towards my personal tastes, so that means small-batch artisan food, useful kitchen tools, eco-friendly pleasures and too many books. But I think there is truly something for everybody, and hope it will spark some joy underneath Christmas trees, Hanukkah lights and Festivus poles near and far.
Love and merriment!
Jackie
P.S. - I have friendships and working relationships with some of the producers included in the guide. But this is not a pay to play situation (if only Sunshine + Microbes had that kind of clout!). All products are included solely because we think they’re awesome.
4 Kitchen-Friendly Stocking Stuffers Under $35
Photos: (left to right) KingArthurFlour.com, Thermoworks.com, Microplane.com
Microplane grater | $17.99 | gtfo with that box grater
Dough scraper | $2.95 | vital for bakers, but perfect for cleaning schmutz off pots and bowls
Knife sharpener | $29.99 | sharpen your knives, sillies! Thanks to Elizabeth V. for the suggestion
Thermopop thermometer | $34 | you need an instant read thermometer, and it might as well be cute
5 Eco-Friendly Gifts for a Sustainable 2020
Photos: JarZeroWaste.com, Shopetee.com, Rei.com
Dental lace | $9.99 | biodegradable silk floss recommended by reader Kelly B., and also used by Jackie daily
Titanium spork | $17.95 | I don’t leave home without it
Etee food bags | $29 | we linked to these in the very first Sunshine + Microbes, and still use them all the time
A gift subscription to Heated, a newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis | $8/month or $75/year | Let’s be mad together. That’s how shit gets done
A bidet | $29.99 | spending on toilet paper in the U.S.? That’s so 2010s
4 Splurges to Celebrate a New Year
Photos: deannalynchtextiles.com, EastFork.com
An Ooni pizza oven| $275+ | These portable multi-fuel ovens are the stuff of pizzaioli’s dreams. I got myself an Ooni Karu as part of their most recent kickstarter campaign, and I cannot wait for it to arrive.
Mockmill | $200+ | a countertop stone mill for the whole grain guru in your life
A set of tableware from East Fork Pottery | $83+ | these are the plates I will have on my table when I grow up.
A sturdy, practical apron ($59), or a handwoven boho number ($120) | When I wash my hands and put on a much-loved apron, I feel more powerful than the Donald in that goofy red clown tie
7 Can’t-Miss Artisan Food Boxes
Photos: YauponBrothers.com, BigSpoonRoasters.com, RanchoGordo.com
A box of heirloom beans (plus a sweet cookbook!) from Rancho Gordo | $57.95 | you’ll never look at legumes the same way
The dark chocolate sampler box from Castronovo chocolate | $45 | definitely the best chocolate that has ever touched my lips
A sampler pack of to-die-for nut butters from Big Spoon roasters | $24.95 | the maple cinnamon is revelatory
Olive oil sampler from Texas Olive Ranch | $26 | the only olive oil in my kitchen
Tea set from Yaupon brothers tea | $30 | Florida’s homegrown tea company
A selection of delicious cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy | $60+
Cookies from Homeboy Industries | $16.95 | support the work of this amazing charity, the world’s largest gang intervention, rehab and re-entry program run by Father Greg Boyle
3 Fabulous Gift Certificates
BuyMeOnce | where you can find goods that are built to last a lifetime
Food52 | an alternate reality of kitchen cuteness
JAR The Zero Waste Shop | plastic-free, shop online or at the adorable brick and mortar in Stuart, Fla.
16 Books for the Well-Prepared Chef 📕📗📘📙
Kitchen Essentials
1. Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
2. Taste & Technique: Recipes to Elevate Home Cooking by Naomi Pomeroy
For Eating Your Veggies
3. Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (hat tip to Ann B. for the suggestion)
4. Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant by Moosewood Collective
5. Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden and Marsha Holmberg
6. Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi
For Fermentos
7. Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting by Kristen K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey
8. Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
9. Miso, Tempeh, Natto by Kristen K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey
10. The Art of Natural Cheesemaking by David Asher
Whimsy in the Kitchen
11. Salad for President: A Cookbook Inspired by Artists by Julia Sherman
12. Bar Tartine by Cortney Burns and Nicolaus Balla
13. La Grotta: Ice Creams and Sorbets by Kitty Travers
Books I’ll Be Getting Myself
14. Koji Alchemy (preorder) by Rich Shih and Jeremy Umansky
15. Pasta Grannies by Vicky Bennison
16. Simple Cake by Odette Williams
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Fresh Links
Our favorite food and environment reads from around the internet. Give’em a click👇
🍃⚕How to Make Consumers Care About the Environment | Outside
All this talk about reducing food waste and resisting fossil fuels, but what’s the point if nobody can convince their pals and kin and, sure even, acquaintances, to join the fight and change their habits. AC Shilton goes into the psychology of what makes changing behaviors so difficult. The answer boils down to motivation and ability. And finding the right motivation for dealing with climate change gets even more difficult due to the “Present Bias Trap”, which basically states it’s hard for us to feel personally affected by problems that might not feel dire for another decade or two (even though it’s dire right now!).
One strategy that’s historically worked to get people moving in the right direction: peer pressure. Despite how commonplace it appears now, recycling faced silly amounts of resistance. In the New Jersey city where curbside recycling was first adopted in the 1980s, residents acted up by dumping trash on their lawn. Eventually, peer pressure won the day and recycling became routine:
One thing curbside recycling had going for it was that it was highly visible, DeVries says. Recycling centers existed before, but you had to take your paper and cans to them—and no one saw you doing it. Curbside bins were another matter. “You did not want to be the last schmuck on your block who was not using their bins,” he says.
As Sunshine + Microbes has written before, individual actions matter because they help create the big wave that will force institutions to make big change. For a New Year’s resolution, Shilton encourages us to set the green example in the community and hope others will start to mirror it.
🍨Why you always seem to have room for dessert | Vox
Nobody does scientific explain-y YouTube videos better than Vox. This short and sweet one explains why we all seem to have a second stomach when it’s time for dessert. This one demonstrates through an uninviting feast the evolutionary reasoning behind why there’s always room for dessert.
📚The Ten Best Books about Food in 2019 | Smithsonian
The end of 2019 means it’s time year-end list after list after list. This one from Smithsonian looks like a stellar summation of the best food reads of the year. It features chefs and works we’ve shouted out before in the newsletter (New Nordic Cuisine pioneer René Redzepi, U.S. beef chronicler Joshua Specht and food futurist Amanda Little).
Exciting recipe books on the list include “Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African-American Cooking” and “Indian-ish: Recipes and Antics from a Modern American Family.” And then there’s chef Iliana Regan memoir “Burn the Place” — her journey through the culinary industry while describing “struggles with gender identity, queerness and addiction” — became the first author nominated for a food-related title nominated for a National Book Award since a Julia Child in 1980.
With the end of the 2010s upon us, we can always go deeper. The Guardian has a list of the best food books of the 21st century, which includes two selections from Sunshine + Microbes’ gift guide (“Plenty” and “Salt Acid Fat Heat”).
No recipe this week with our focus on the gift guide (check out those cookbooks for plenty more tantalizing recipes). Stay tuned over the next few weeks for adorable and easy gift recipes that you can hand out to friends and family.
In the meantime, read Jackie’s post on Instagram influencers and the infamous #crumbshot. And don’t miss Brinna, a very good dog, who’s savoring some sourdough in the bottom of the photo.
I said yep what a concept /
I could use a melon🍈 myself /
and we could all use a little chaaaaaange
Talk to Us
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.