Gourmet Gift of the Day Blog

I think this basket is one of the most festive ones offered online for the holiday season!  I love the dark wicker basket with the bright, cheery sign on the front.  The food items inside the basket also add to the fun holiday presentation!  Offering much more than just candy and sweets, Christmas Gifts & Gift Baskets has combined sweet and salty gifts and kept the price affordable.  For $44 plus $9.95 shipping, this basket is perfect to have around for when unexpected guests or carolers stop by for a visit!  Items included in the basket are:

• Pecan Pralines
• Holiday Peanuts
• Chive and Onion flavored biscuits
• Tomato Basil Pretzels
• Cheese Lover’s Pub Mix
• Fruit and Nut Snack Mix
• Raspberry Cookies
• Caramel Corn
• Fruit Sours
• Wafer Rolls
• Happy Holidays Reception Sticks

This unique gift set offers tasty food items with a football theme.  The cutting board is firebranded with your company’s logo, and the beef summer sausage is shaped like a football!  Along with the cutting board and meat, the gift set includes mild cheddar cheese, sesame crackers and a cheese knife.

These personalized gift sets can be shipped directly to your clients or can be bulk-shipped to your office to be given in person.  Each gift costs $37, and the customer service team at Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets will help to ensure your logo will be perfectly firebranded onto each cutting board.

This elegant wine gift highlights the fruits of California wineries and makes an exquisite presentation for an important client or esteemed colleague.  I ordered this item as a special thank you gift when my husband’s boss offered him a great business opportunity.  I knew he was a wine connoisseur, and thought it was the least we could do to show our appreciation.  My husband said that his boss showed this gift to the entire department, and raved about how delicious the food items were!  He also told my husband that he enjoyed the rich flavors of the wine selections.  I was glad that this gift was such a hit, and would highly recommend ordering it as a thank you or housewarming gift.  All About Gifts & Baskets offers this gift for $140, and also has an extensive collection of other wine gifts so you can find one that fits your needs.

This container in this gift is actually a leather magazine rack, and the items included are:

• Sesame Pepper Crostini Crackers
• White Zinfandel Havarti Cheese
• Spanish Olives
• Cheese Straws
• Cabernet Biscuits
• Torn Ranch Mixed Nuts
• Biscotti Cookies
• Mocha Truffles
• California Cabernet Sauvignon
• California Old Vine Zinfandel
• California Chardonnay
• California Sauvignon Blanc
• Wine Corkscrew

My husband and I are both from big families who love to get together around the holidays.  To ensure that there is enough food for everyone, we love the Grand Banquet basket offered by Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets.  Containing food items from breakfast through dessert, this basket contains goodies for everyone - even those who are watching their weight over the holidays!

When I ordered this basket last year, my mom and sister were surprised at how fresh the fruit was.  I have ordered from Holiday Gifts & Gift Baskets a number of times, and have never had a bad experience with them!  Their frequent buyer club program comes in handy around the holidays as well -  I have been saving up my points throughout the year and plan on spending them one (or two) of these baskets for the long Thanksgiving week-end.  The giant market-sized basket costs $123, and contains:

• 6 Comice Pears
• 2 Bosc Pears
• 2 Fuji Apples
• 1 Granny Smith Apple
• 4 ounces Brie Cheese
• 8 ounces Premium Dry Jack Cheese
• Gourmet Olive Oil Crackers
• 9.5 ounces of Strawberry/Rhubarb Jam
• 6 ounces of Colossal Pistachios
• 6 ounces of Chocolate Covered Cherries
• 6 ounces Almond Biscotti
• 6 ounces English Toffee
• 2 ounces of Baklava

When I think of gourmet bagels, I immediately think of those made in New York City.  One of the most popular Bagel Stores in NYC is H&H Bagels, located in the heart of Manhattan at the corner of Broadway & 80th Street.

Being a true Midwestern girl, traveling to New York City terrifies me.  But I also adore bagels and was told that the ones available in the midwest don’t compare to a bagel that is baked up with a crust that crackles and a dense, chewy inside.  Imagine my delight when I discovered that H&H Bagels can be delivered to me from the NYC bakery via the magic of the internet!

I ordered the Breakfast Gift Box, which contained two dozen assorted bagels, two packs of Nova Salmon, two packages of cream cheese, and 2 authentic H&H coffee mugs.  The $89 gift box was overnighted to me and I swear I could still see the steam rising from the bagels when I opened the box!  My favorite was a simple plain bagel, covered with cream cheese and just a bit of salmon.  Although they were a bit spendy and I probably will not order them again (overnight shipping is the only option, and it adds $43.50 to the price), I was very glad to have experienced a true New York bagel.

The critics were right, you can’t get a genuine NY bagel here in the midwest.  The crunchy outside and slightly salty dough that make up these bagels created an awesome taste that I will always remember.  I even have two coffee mugs to remind me of my “authentic” bagel experience.

My grandpa is a diabetic so it’s sometimes hard to find treats that fall within his dietary guidelines.  Luckily I was able to find this fun pumpkin planter filled with sugar-free treats for his autumn birthday.  He loved the apple chips and sugar-free jelly beans, and the cute scarecrow and pumpkin are now a great centerpiece on his kitchen table.

The gift included toasted wheat crackers, apple chips, sugar-free Jelly Belly jelly beans, sugar-free wafer cookie, sugar-free chocolate bar and some sugar-free hard candies.  I was able to get all of this for $37 plus $8.95 for shipping.

I never thought I would order bread online because I didn’t think it would stay fresh for long.  Fortunately, I was wrong.  The loaves of bread offered in this gift box were fresh, moist and delicious!  Even though there are only 4 of us in the house, these 4 loaves were gone long before they had a chance to get stale.

Zingerman’s offers a variety of fresh bread choices, but we wanted a sample of their most popular items so we chose the Deli Deluxe Bread Gift Box.  Containing Jewish Rye, Farm Bread, Better Than San Francisco Sourdough and Pecan Raisin bread, we received a vast range in flavor from heavy and rich to light and crisp to soft and sweet.  The first loaf to go was the Farm Bread, which was perfect for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!  The crust was crispy, but not so much that you couldn’t bite through it easily.  The next to go was the sweet Pecan Raisin - which was perfect for a quick breakfast.  The Sourdough was used for grilled cheese sandwiches, and was a perfect match to tomato soup.  My husband liked the rye, but the kids and I weren’t a fan of the flavor - probably because we had never experienced it before.  Overall, the bread box was a hit with our family, and at $45 plus $15 shipping we will definitely order again!

Surprise a hardworking woman you know with this relaxation gift set.  Better yet, before she arrives home draw her a bath, light the Lemon Chamomile candle, put on the relaxing TeaMind CD, and pour her a cup of Chamomile Lemon tea to sip as she lets the stresses of the day disappear down the drain!  The Republic of Tea sells this gift set for $50, and donates $5 of each purchase to the Light A Heart foundation, which provides financial support to children and young adults with autism and epilepsy.  Not only can you make your lady happy, you can feel good about helping others!

It’s always a sad occasion when someone loses a loved one.  Gift baskets bring comfort to those left behind, and provides snacks for those paying their respects to the family.  A beautiful and substantial gift basket is the Deluxe Bereavement Gift Basket - which can help convey your sympathy to the deceased and their family.

Contents of the basket include Sun Dried Tomato Basil Cheese Spread, Summer Sausage, Parmesan Bruschetta, Foccacia Crisp Crackers, Gourmet Olives, Smoked Almonds, Cashew Crunch, Peanut Butter & Chocolate Popcorn, Butter Toffee Pretzels, Monbana Chocolate Squares, Ghirardelli Chocolate Mint Candy Bar, Butter Cookies, Chocolate Wafer Cookies, Golden Walnut Chocolate Fudge Cookies, Lemon Green Tea, Ghirardelli Chocolate Mint Coffee and Cinnamon Biscotti.

These thoughtful gifts are arranged in a cloth-lined basket and tied with a stunning ribbon for $98 from All About Gifts & Baskets.

My favorite Sunday Morning breakfast is homemade - fluffy buttermilk pancakes, warm maple syrup and thick-sliced bacon with a tall glass of orange juice.  So I really hit the jackpot when I found this Bacon Gift Basket!  Shipped straight to you from the self-proclaimed Bacon Freak, his gourmet choices make a perfect housewarming gift, get well gift or thank you basket.  The handsome wicker basket is filled with 2 pounds of gourmet bacon, bacon salt, pancake mix and an assortment of jams and jellies.  The bacon we received was thick-cut, flavored perfectly and cooked up crisp and delicious!  It was a perfect compliment to the pancakes and jelly in the basket.  The Bacon Freak sells this basket for $82.95, which includes free shipping.