<p>Anyone have any great ideas for food products to send as holiday gifts? Perhaps a product local to you, but new to us?</p>
<p>My favorite is Pensys but that is because my kids both love to cook and love their spices.</p>
<p>Sending a lot of HI macademia nuts, coffee, macademia nut candies and HI photo calendars. They seem to be greatly enjoyed by the recipients and are consumable. Sometimes I have made in HI teas as well, but don’t know as many tea drinkers. Don’t like shipping bottles and jars – too easily broken.</p>
<p>You can send that tea here! Only kidding. </p>
<p>I am sending gourmet hot chocolate mixes and hand made snowflake shaped marshmallows (withsome sea salt caramels to round things out) all wrapped in a muslin striped stocking bag. In the past I sent Penzey’s (a WI product - like me!) with a high quality french linen tea towel, but since there are now stores all over the country, the “specialness” of Penzey’s among our friends and family has worn off. </p>
<p>New Mexico pistachios–esp the green and red chile pistachios in the shells. Pistachio brittle (with and without red chile). Piñon brittle. Piñon turtle candy. Red chile ristras or wreaths. (Nice to look at with a bonus in that the pods can be turned into red chile sauce later.) Blue corn posole kits (i.e. dried posole plus spices & chile to make posole stew). Local blue popping corn. Blue cornmeal pancake mix. Kakawa drinking chocolate elixirs.</p>
<p>Flagship. Smoked Flagship. And more Flagship! :)</p>
<p>Hoping my connection holds. Happy Thanksgiving! For some reason I thought of tea from the gift shop at The Fairmont Empress in Victoria, BC. Not that I’ve ever sent tea from there, but I have a hankering to make a trip back up one of these times and I do remember the tea. I think this is the link.
us.fairmontstore.com/collections/tea</p>
<p>(have not stayed at The Empress but did have afternoon tea there)</p>
<p>Zingermans</p>
<p>BB, do you order directly from Beecher’s and have them do the shipping?</p>
<p>Maybe because we had a sweet memory while we were living in NW, I always miss some food while we were living there:</p>
<p>How about Aplets and Cotlets from Liberty Orchards at Cashmere and smoked salmon? (Well, both are definitely not new to OP.)</p>
<p>I did the “buy at Costco/cold pack/no ma’am, there are no perishables/USPS Priority ship” Beecher’s - it worked fine. However, if you are sending a gift basket to someone other than your close relatives, I recommend ordering directly from their website. </p>
<p>Not local to us, but I often order/gift Kringle at Christmas, and it is always VERY well received:</p>
<p><a href=“Everyday Kringle Favorites - O&H Danish Bakery of Racine Wisconsin”>Everyday Kringle Favorites - O&H Danish Bakery of Racine Wisconsin;
<p>BB, would you mind explaining how you did the cold pack?</p>
<p>I sent this to my sister last year and it was a hit. Dried fruit and nuts–no risk of spoilage. <a href=“Dried Fruit and Nut Tray | Harry & David”>Dried Fruit and Nut Tray | Harry & David;
<p>Hard cheeses do not go bad quickly even if left at cooler room temperature for much longer than the proverbial 2 hours everyone is talking about. After all, cheese making pre-dates the invention of refrigeration! Here is an interesting insight on whether refrigeration during shipping is needed:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.henningscheese.com/pdf/storage_temperatures_necessary_to_maintain_cheese_safety.pdf”>http://www.henningscheese.com/pdf/storage_temperatures_necessary_to_maintain_cheese_safety.pdf</a></p>
<p>What I did? I froze one food item, added a few frozen cold packs, wrapped everything in paper to absorb any moisture that would condense on the cold items, placed everything in a Styrofoam box (found a small at work) that fit inside a large flat rate USPS box, and shipped it. I knew that the box would not be exposed to hot temps (winter) and would reach the destination in 2 days.</p>
<p>That said, if you are still concerned about spoilage or possible liability, buy and ship via the company’s site.</p>
<p>We received pears once from Harry & David and they were delicious.</p>
<p>I was just going to suggest those pears!!</p>
<p>I gave my husband the Craft Beer of the Month Club. He loves it!</p>
<p>We receive Harry & David pears and apples every year from my dad, and to my taste, they are of a lower quality than we can get in the chain grocery store down the street.</p>
<p>I love the Deep Dark Gingerbread Cake at dancingdeer.com</p>