A Birthday Tribute: Gifts That Made Me Smile

posted on May 22, 2009 by Beth // 1 Comment »

With my birthday just around the corner and the celebration already well under way, it’s quite possible you won’t hear from me for a few days. So before I disappear, I wanted to take some time to highlight a few great food-related items I’ve been gifted with over the past couple of birthdays. Hopefully these will give you inspiration for the foodie in your life.

Yes, that’s me and my friend Lori hanging from the chandelier. Just demonstrating the proper way to celebrate a birthday!

Delivered to my office a couple of years ago was this fabulous assortment of chocolates from Asheville, NC’s The Chocolate Fetish, courtesy of my sweet friend Rachel. I’m not sure if you can tell from the photo, but they were huge! My co-workers loved me that week. The assortment included Dark Chocolate marbled with Mint, Peanut Butter Swirl, Cookies and Cream, Dark Chocolate Espresso, and Milk Chocolate Raspberry Crunch. Yummy!


Last year my friend Melissa hooked me up with Think Like a Chef written by my current celebrity chef crush, Tom Collichio. I’ve read through it twice from cover to cover, and highly recommend it. Describing it as a cookbook does not do it justice-it’s more of a cooking philosophy book. Yes, there are recipes, and they are great, but more importantly he teaches you how to cook without recipes. This weekend I plan to bury myself in his teachings a third time so it will be fresh on my mind when I meet Tom in NYC in 2 weeks! (will report all the exciting details of that at a later date!)


For those guys out there that have been told your lady doesn’t want appliances as gifts, don’t believe it. Some of us do! My hubby knows me well- he bought me this awesome Kitchenaid food processor. Give me a good kitchen gadget over jewelry any day.

I’m not the proud owner of this particular item, but it’s on my wish list (hint, hint). What could get me more worked up than good food? Why, combining food with a board game of course! A bit competitive am I, so this Foodie Fight Trivia Game is right up my alley.