Holiday Gift Guide 2015 Part II – Science and Blather!

My last post was all about some gifts you could get for the beer and/or food geeks in your life. This list is my other passion, science, and then a bunch of other things that have made my life better over the past year in some way or another. Or, like the last post, a few things I might pick up in the future (holidays make it hard to buy for oneself).

In any case, these are usually things that have made me or someone I love happy, with an occasional thing I’m just dying to buy (for me or someone else).

Science:

First and foremost, let me reiterate “the single best suggestion/idea I can give you is to go shop for your entire list at your favorite local museum, aquarium, planetarium, or zoo.”… Continue reading →

Holiday Gift Guide 2015 Part I – Food and Beer

Last year I did my first ever “gift guide,” and was surprised at how much folks liked the post. I admit, I hadn’t been sure people would be interested in my suggestions, but I decided to put them out there in case it was useful. This year, knowing it was well-liked last year, I’ve been paying a bit more attention to possible suggestions.

It helped, frankly, that Bill and I moved across the country and had to decide both what to get rid of entirely and what to put into storage for the next nine months. The toaster oven made the moving cut, but not the storage cut, for example. The electric kettle in that post, however, remains a part of my day to day living.… Continue reading →

Science, Beer, Food, and Blathering Gift Suggestions

Well, after blogging for four and a half years, I guess I’ve started to get the hang of things. Like, in December, a blogger should consider having a “gift guide” or something. Or a good cookie recipe. Or both.

Well, I have several cookie recipes, but nothing new for you, so I guess we’ll have to settle on a gift ideas. I tried to come up with a few things that I have liked, used, or given as potential gifts from each “section” of the blog (food, beer, science, blather).

Mostly, I think these things are neat, fun, or wonderful and I hope to help you find something spectacular for someone awesome in your life. Or, if not find, give you some a springboard for other ideas.… Continue reading →

So, you want to give a coffee gift…

Hi there, all. Bill here. I don’t have much to say on the blog these days, but Tasha asked me to make this post. I’ve had a few people ask me recently about gifting coffee stuff to people in their lives, and I wrote a pretty long email to one of them recently that contained my thoughts. Here’s an edited version thereof.

So, a couple of caveats before I start: I assume the person you’re purchasing for is into schmancy coffee to some degree. Someone who just likes a basic cup of coffee may not appreciate a bunch of this, but who knows? You might just start them onto a new hobby and some better coffee to drink. Also, I have no idea what your budget is: I’ll mention roughly how expensive things are, but that’s all you get.… Continue reading →

Five sentimental kitchen items

So, Jen only asked for the previous two “five things” posts. Once I got to thinking about it, I realized it would be fun to do another “five things” post. This one is all about things in my kitchen that I am sentimental about. Things that matter to me beyond their function, and generally make me smile every time I use them due to the associated memories.

I have to be honest. This was, by far, the hardest post to do. The last “five things” post was easy because it turns out I only had about five things in the kitchen I truly regretted, and the first post was easy because I had many daily users, but those were either the oddballs or the expensive and I don’t want to replace.… Continue reading →