A gift is a tangible expression of thoughtfulness and love (similar to cooking at its best! :). I love that feeling of finding *the perfect gift* for someone - it's like an "aha moment" but in service of someone else. In my experience, though, this happens rarely, spontaneously, and never when I'm “looking” for a gift.

As an aspiring minimalist, I am very much against buying gifts just to buy something, so when I haven’t found + saved up a perfect gift, I try to make sure my gifts check the box in at least one - ideally more than one - of the following categories: practical, meaningful, healthful, and/or special. (Of course - if you want to hit ALL the categories, consider gifting my cooking course: Intuitive Cooking 101!)

the GPJ Thoughtful Gift Giving Guide

Category #1: Practical - I'm a practical person, so I like practical gifts. I love noticing things that people need and then filling in the gap for them. I love receiving practical gifts because then I get to think of the gift giver every time I use the practical item! Here are three of my favorite sub-categories of practical gifts:

1. Kitchen Tools - check out my Kitchen Shop page for an extended list of my favs. The coconut husk veggie scrubbing brush, microplane, vejibags, and salad spinners are my favorite tools to gift. In my experience these four get WOW responses from folks who do not have these currently in their kitchens :)

2. Food Gifts - obviously I'm a huge fan!

   1. Diaspora Co’s turmeric popcorn kit is SO CUTE!!! This popcorn is a HUGE HIT at gatherings - also the best turmeric (and spices) on the market.

   2. Anything from Dandelion Chocolate - special and worth it!

3. Books - the gift of knowledge is probably my favorite thing to give and receive! Cookbooks are an obvious favorite - see my top 7 here. And for three favorite books I read this year:

   1. Everything is Figureouteable by Marie Forleo - best inspirational/self help book I have read, maybe EVER! (Yes this is a strong statement.) Would be great for people looking to change things up or to help them figure out what they want.

   2. Winners Take All by Anand Giridaradas - if you think you want to change the world through business, read this book and get your mind/butt kicked in the best way

   3. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - about a therapist who goes to therapy - funny, poignant, and educational all at once. I listened on Audible 👌

Category #2: Meaningful - Any thoughtful gift will have meaning, but here are some tips for the most challenging of the gifting categories...

1. Give experiences instead of gifts! - in my opinion, quality time is the best possible gift. I love taking friends on birthday dates that include a fun/special activity, or just cooking for people dinner and spending time :).

2. New/unique/favorite items - What’s something new or exciting that you’ve discovered this year?! I love gifting my own favorite things to people I care about, who often share similar interests. For one of my personal new favs, check out Juniper Ridge. I am recently into incense instead of scented candles and I LOVE their campfire incense selection. I'm a fan of incense because I can get more varieties of smells, and I don’t like to burn scented candles at dinner parties because they clash with the smells of my food. Juniper Ridge scents are sustainably harvested and distilled from wild California plants in different locales. They even have a special Christmas Fir scent for the holidays!

3. Photos/Photo Gifts - my favorite easy but meaningful gift is printing photos. This is so cheap and also special because no one takes the time to do it anymore! (Yes, it takes an annoyingly long time to look through, decide on, and print out photos - but it's fun!) CVS and Walgreens both have apps that make it easy to order printed photos from your phone. If you want a prettier artsy-yet-sustainable option, check out these wooden prints - the coasters are especially cool!

Category #3: Healthful - this may seem strange at first but I think health-promoting gifts are a great way to show you care for someone! This category also reveals my affinity for sustainable/earth-friendly gifts.

1. Plants! - they clean the air, make people happy, AND last a while, so I recently started gifting A LOT of plants. In SF I try to propagate-and-give from my own house plants (more meaningful!), otherwise The Sill is my fav for long-distance sending.

2. Natural wine - I will go into detail on this in the future (I swear it's a health drink!) but read more here or check out my neighbor/friend/wine-guru’s awesome company Rock Juice, of which I am a subscriber.

3. Special teas and herbs from The Scarlet Sage Co - if in SF, go in person! but if not you can order online

4. Package Free Shop - I walked into a little shop in Chelsea Market while in NYC this past week and saw some of my favorite sustainable-living type products. This is the first company I’ve seen to have LARGE SIZE sealable stainless steel containers for food (They have a 6L)! And almost everything has no packaging!

Category #4: Special/Splurge - this category is for the SHOWSTOPPER GIFT - something *special* that makes the receiver FEEL that way!

1. Farmgirl Flowers - one of my favorite companies, their flowers are seasonal and full of greens and just THE BEST. If you cut them / change the water every other day and pull out the dying stems, I’ve had the bouquets last A MONTH. Not kidding.

2. For your Christmas-loving friends - this Dandelion Chocolate Advent Calendar!!!!! O.M.G. I’m halfway through mine right now and it is AMAZING. A STUNNING, bean-to-bar, chef-tastic, SO-THOUGHTFULLY-MADE chocolate collaboration in the form of the childhood joy that is the Advent calendar!!! YES PLEASE. This is A VERY SPECIAL (expensive) GIFT.

3. See the new “SPLURGE" section on my shop page for more ideas.

4. For that someone special (especially someone who lives with you because you will reap the rewards/can share in the knowledge!) consider gifting my cooking course: Intuitive Cooking 101! This one is truly the gift that keeps on giving in terms of craveable, veggie-centric food day after day!

Happy holidays and happy gifting - this season and throughout the year!

xo,
Jess