Little Chef Kit/Pots and Pans Gift Set for the budding kid chef:

• Zookies Cooking Apron Set with a wisk, measuring spoons, two cookie cutters, chalk and a recipe book

• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff

• Mouse Cookies and More by Laura Joffe Numeroff

• Sassafras Cookie Making Set

I wish there were sets with adult-sized aprons!

Citibabes Store, $95

Whenever I was invited to a birthday party as a child, my mom took me to Target and let me roam free to choose a gift in the $12 range (a price that didn’t seem arbitrary until now; I guess I figured this was a universal birthday-gift-giving-price). Problem was, I always came back with a gift I wanted for myself and I would be upset, and inexplicably shocked, to have to part with it.

So the story would continue, as an adult, with this wine thermometer. It clamps right onto a standard wine bottle and compares the bottle’s actual temperature against guidelines for chardonnay, pinot noir, and port, among others.

Best of all, it’s just $9.50. Enough money left to add a card (or a chocolate bar).

What a gorgeous teapot! Practical, too: microwave/dishwasher/oven safe!

By San Fernando Valley, California-based Alina Hayes on Etsy.

A trivet for hot items going from the kitchen to the dining table.

I think this would be perfect for brunch table setting, holding a cheesy egg casserole or baked fruit.

Crocheted by Easton, Pennsylvania-based artist ErikaM77 on Etsy.

I can only imagine my disappointment, as a child, finding these in my Christmas stocking. I probably would have burst out crying.

For those of us who chop onions almost daily, though… they spare tears.

I wish they looked a little chicer, though. Guess it’s hard to make foam-cushioned plastic fashionable.

With Halloween behind us it is apparently time to think about holiday gifts.

Normally this would make me gag, but in the case of wine gift baskets–bring on Christmakwanzakah.

Bottlerocket is a fun wine store on West 19th Street (which I found out about via some free wine tastings).

In the store, wines are arranged according to what types of foods they’d go well with: “take out,” “seafood,” “treats,” etc.

Another perk of this store is its gift baskets, ahem, pails, which you can custom-fill with various wines, champagnes, wine/food-themed books and magazines, and wine accessories… whatever would delight or inspire. They do the wrapping and the shipping. You don’t have to be in NYC to give or to receive one of these pails.

Couldn’t December come a little faster? Just kidding.

Some dear friends threw us an engagement party last Saturday. One of the couples in attendance, Lilo & Tom, gifted us a large jar of “Lilo’s Southern Love Nuts.”

They are now gone. Yes, gone.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday- three days. Really, is that all?

Well, they’re that good. Enjoy.

Lilo’s Southern “Love Nuts” (Rosemary Roasted Pecans)

1. Preheat oven to 300F. Line two cookie sheets with aluminum foil.

2. In a small saucepan, heat oil, rosemary, salt, garlic powder, and pepper until warmed through. Pour mixture over pecans in a bowl and toss. Drain excess oil using a colander.

3. Quickly spread in even layers on cookie sheets. Roast nuts for 15 minutes. Cool and pack in tins. Store in cool place.

As I’ve stated previously, I’m not inclined to buy a lot of gadgets to clutter my kitchen, but here’s one that is worth its space: a custom coffee grinder.  I have the Hamilton Beach model pictured above.

If you’re a coffee drinker, it allows you to only grind a few days’ worth of beans at a time and thus enhancing freshness.  You can set the lever to various grind sizes within categories of “auto drip” or “espresso.”

But I also use it for other things: if I need to quickly grind up an herb or a spice, or when I want to make some raw/demera/turbinado sugar more suitable for recipes (or to better dissolve in coffee).

Save yourself a future heart attack, though, by carefully wiping down the blade if you use sugar or any other substance that could get sticky.  Not because a sticky blade will cause a heart attack, per se, but because a sticky blade may not turn and will thus make you think your coffee grinder just died, which may cause severe distress.  But it didn’t die, and you can calm down, it’s just sticky.

There are two types of people: those who love bubbles in their beverages and those who don’t give a rip.

I’m a carbonation lover but on most occasions avoid soda. The regular versions make my teeth feel like they’re disintegrating into a sticky mess, and the diet versions make me feel… well, guilty. My preferred source of carbonation is seltzer water, which is to New Yorkers what milk is to Midwesterners: a tonic from an early age and, a couple of generations back, delivered to your doorstep.

I would love to drink seltzer daily but hate lugging it back from the grocery store. A year ago on a trip to Vermont I made my fiance (who was a mere boyfriend at the time) go to a supermarket and load up the trunk with seltzer since we had a CAR (rented) and driving it back 6 hours to our doorstep in NYC seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. We didn’t get engaged that weekend.

Enter Soda Stream, which just came to my local coop. Imagine: carbonation in my daily life without without the weight OR the trip to Vermont (not to mention without the sticky teeth OR artificial-sweetener-induced guilt). I’m going to have to see how much it costs.