The Best Cheese Accessories

Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, best friends, in-laws: The holiday present-giving list seems endless. Add the hosts and hostesses who are feeding you at all the cocktail parties, dinners, and last-minute get-togethers, and the onus of holiday giving can seem like an endless commercial bacchanal. Make it easy on yourself, and make your recipients happy: Here are our suggestions for gifts that work for almost any social situation.

The Sure-Bet Gift

Unless you’re invited over to a sugar-free household, something sweet always goes over well. These pralines are sweet, addictive, and indulgent.
Box of Pralines, $13 at Boule

Plenty of resolutions get made and quickly broken this time of year. Help your host start the New Year with the best intentions with a Moleskine 2007 daily planner.
Moleskine 2007 Planner, $16.95 at Mxyplyzyk

There is inevitably the gift you’ll give for no other reason than to impress (your boss’s wife’s parents, perhaps). Highland Park 18 Year Old Scotch does just that—and it will even cut the edge off of making small talk with your boss’s wife’s parents … if you can persuade your hostess to crack it open.
Highland Park 18 Year Old Scotch, $79.99 at BevMo or your local fine spirit retailer

Just because it’s the dead of winter doesn’t mean things don’t grow. Give a forcing bulb and let your host try his hand at making something bloom.
Set of 12 paperwhite bulbs, $12 at Smith & Hawken

The Homemaking Gift

Here’s a candle that’s elegant and subtly scented.
Frasier Fir Multi-Wick Candle, $24 at Amazon.com

Bring some coffee to help end the night on a high note.
Espresso Temescal, $16.75 at Blue Bottle Coffee Co.

If you’ve been invited to a friend of a friend’s place, you need to come equipped with an icebreaker. These cups are good-looking and are bound to stir up the conversation.
Crinkle Cup, $20 at Clio

The Cleansing Gift

No matter how great the event is, cleanup is always a drag. This gingerbread cleanup kit from Mrs. Meyers will ease the pain. Maybe you’ll even be inspired enough to whip up some cookies.
Gingerbread Holiday Clean-Up Kit, $15 at Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day

The Aspiring-Epicure Gift
Help your host reach her gourmand potential with a cheese-knife and cheeseboard set. And if you’re really in the giving spirit, you can bring some cheese to take it for its test run.
Cheese Knife Set with Marble Top Cheese Board, $79.95 at Cooking.com

Saturated with information and useful techniques. This book has simple, elegant recipes with a creative twist, like mock porchetta.

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant
By Judy Rodgers (W. W. Norton, 2002; $23.10 at Amazon.com)

Deborah Madison has achieved cultlike status for her fantastic recipes starring vegetables and fruits. This is the bible. Not just for vegetarians.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison (Broadway, 1997; $26.40 at Amazon.com)

The American home cook’s ultimate guide to cooking Chinese. The book teaches everything from seasoning a wok to using a cleaver to making dim sum.

The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking: Techniques and Recipes
By Barbara Tropp (Morrow Cookbooks, 1996, reissue edition; $17.75 at Amazon.com)

Turns out grated potato makes a darn good taco filling, and you can throw together some mind-blowingly good Mexican stews in 10 minutes with a slow cooker. So many tasty recipes in so little time.

Mexican Everyday
By Rick Bayless (W. W. Norton, 2005; $19.77 at Amazon.com)

This book covers the entire Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The food photographs are gorgeous, as are the many photos showing the cultures of the region.

Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent
By Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan, 2005; $29.70 at Amazon.com)

Madhur Jaffrey’s recipes taste authentic, as if they came straight from their country of origin without being dumbed down. She explores more exotic territory, like Persian food, in this book, along with her show-stopping Indian recipes.

Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the Globe
By Madhur Jaffrey (Clarkson Potter, 2002, reprint edition; $17.13 at Amazon.com)

The late Edna Lewis and her friend, chef Scott Peacock, deliver some of the best Southern recipes we’ve ever tried. The chocolate cake recipe alone is worth the price of the book.

The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks
By Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock (Knopf, 2003; $19.77 at Amazon.com)

Not really a cookbook, Hungry Planet presents how and what the world eats through a glossy comparative photo journey, chronicling the authors’ visits to 30 families in 24 countries to share 600 meals.

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats
By Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio (Ten Speed Press, 2005; $26.40 at Amazon.com)

Chef Ferran Adrià’s stimulating, photo-heavy books that narrate the cuisine of his restaurant, El Bulli, are slowly becoming available on the American market. This most recent release is full of dishes you will never cook, but will never tire of ogling, either.

El Bulli 2003–2004
By Ferran Adrià and Juli Soler (Ecco, 2006; $220.50 at Amazon.com)

Pastry chef Oriol Balaguer’s La Cocina de los Postres is now available in English, and it’s pure eye candy of the avant-garde pastry persuasion. This one’s a little hard to find but worth seeking out.

Dessert Cuisine
By Oriol Balaguer (Montagud Editores, 2002; $149.95; available from Kitchen Arts and Letters, 212-876-5550).

For the first time, Thomas Keller’s award-winning books Bouchon and The French Laundry Cookbook are available packaged together in a beautiful, gift-able boxed set.

The Complete Thomas Keller: The French Laundry Cookbook & Bouchon
By Thomas Keller (Artisan, 2006; $63 at Amazon.com)

No home library is complete without a good reference book, and The Professional Chef is just that (and so much more). With straightforward definitions, illustrative photos, and recipes based on classic techniques, it is the closest you’ll get to attending culinary school without putting on your whites. The updates in design and photography made the eighth edition well worth the wait.

The Professional Chef, 8th Edition
By the Culinary Institute of America (Wiley, 2006; $44.10 at Amazon.com)

Jancis Robinson is among the wine world’s most revered experts, so it’s only natural that she be the editor of The Oxford Companion’s new edition. The hefty reference covers everything from vine to glass, including the role of water in making wine.

The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition
By Jancis Robinson (Oxford University Press, 2006; $40.95 at Amazon.com)

Having this book on hand is second-best to having Martha help you ice the next birthday cake you whip up. Surely that’s “a good thing.”

Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook
By Martha Stewart (Clarkson Potter, 2005; $26.40 at Amazon.com)

When three-star chef Bernard Loiseau—a cult figure in France—committed suicide in 2003, the country’s grief was immense. The Perfectionist recounts Loiseau’s career and his seemingly fatal obsession with the Michelin Guide.

The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine
By Rudolph Chelminski (Gotham, 2005; $20.90 at Amazon.com)

A collection of essays discussing what seems like every grape in the wine world. Jay McInerney’s tone and perspective make the too-often heady subject of wine so approachable you’ll have to try not to guzzle it.

A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine
By Jay McInerney (Knopf, 2006; $16.32 at Amazon.com)

Journalist Bill Buford became the envy of aspiring chefs when he took up a post as a line chef at Mario Batali’s Babbo restaurant. Heat recounts Buford’s adventures as he honed his culinary skills on the line and searched out Italy’s perfect recipes.

Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
By Bill Buford (Knopf, 2006; $17.13 at Amazon.com)

A quarterly publication so beautiful that it’s worth setting aside space on your bookshelf to archive back issues. This is not your standard food magazine—more like National Geographic mixed with Scientific American.

Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, $47 annual subscription