2011 Gift Guide for People Who Like to Eat, Drink and Cook

So you want to cook like a professional chef but you don't have the time or the knowledge or even the inclination to make those fabulous stocks and sauces from scratch. Well More Than Gourmet has solved all those problems with their collection of demi glaces, stocks, essences and duck fat that are available to the home cook (and professional) both online and at cooking shops. Besides their great taste and ability to make you look like you know what you're doing in the kitchen, they're free of chemicals, preservatives, artificial colors and flavors, fillers and HVP, AYE, MSG and gluten. It doesn't get any better than that! Well, maybe it does -- they also make certified vegan sauces and stocks.

USA Pans, a division of an excellent line of professional baking pans, offers commercial-grade bakeware created for home cooks. As the name implies, the pans are made in the USA of environmentally friendly heavy-gauge, aluminized 65%-recycled steel coated with a clear, nonstick, silicone that is PTFE and PFOA free. What a great gift for newlyweds or anyone starting housekeeping for the first time. If the pans aren't subjected to heat higher than 450 degrees, dishwashers or sharp metal utensils, they should last a lifetime. The strapped mini loaf pan, biscotti pan and pullman loaf pan are my favorites.

It's not just the French who love pâté and other specialty meats. Eastern Europeans have loved pasztet and other chi-chi dishes long before French aristocracy intermarried with Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Russian aristocracy. If you have someone in your family who remembers the glory days of Eastern European high society, this is the perfect gift, just as it is for the uninitiated. Alexian products are all natural made without preservatives, fillers, additives, artificial colors, antibiotics and growth hormones. The product line is diverse (including duck rillette, mousses, terrines and vegetarian options). This ain't your grandmother's chopped liver!

If you enjoy simple-yet-decadent, moist, flavorful cakes, quickbreads, cookies and brownies, Hungry Monkey is the online bakery for you. Owner Cindy Kienzle, marketing executive turned baking guru, stands by her products that are baked from scratch in small batches and then shipped to you at the peak of freshness. I've tried several of these treats and my favorites are the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, Lemon Vanilla Bean Bread and Carrot Cake with Buttermilk-Caramel Glaze. If you're lucky, she'll still be making her Pumpkin Bread. But, wait. Don't miss the Triple Chocolate Brownies (to die for!) and Chocolate Chip Macaroons.

You've heard of water being turned into wine? Well, how about turning fruit juice (except orange) into an effervescent 14% alcohol beverage in the German Federweisser tradition? That's what Spike Your Juice claims it does. I can't vouch for the alcohol content, but the flavor is there and what a fun gift for the person who has everything. You just pick your juice with at least 20g sugar and no artificial flavorings, add the "secret" powder, cap it with the special air lock, wait 48 hours and, voila, party time! I made mine with cranberry juice and it was refreshing. They say grape juice produces the best results.

If you care about the food your family eats, Coleman Natural uses strict animal-raising protocols that surpass even USDA standards to bring you all natural pork and poultry products. That means animals that are vegetarian-fed and raised without hormones, antibiotics or preservatives. The line is extensive. I've tried the bacon, kielbasa, pork tenderloin, meatballs and sausage, but Coleman offers so much more, including organic items. Coleman is available at stores like Whole Foods, Costco and others. There's a store locator function on the website.

Until now, the only way to get a dry-aged steak was in a restaurant. Not anymore, UMAI DrybagSteak kit, with its specially designed bags, allows you to do this in the comfort of your own refrigerator. The process takes 28 days and you will need to provide your own meat, but what you're left with is a delicious, juicy piece of beef only dry aging can produce. UMAI won the National Restaurant Association 2011 Product Innovation of the Year award. The product is available to professionals and home cooks alike.

As much as I like wine, I'm not much of a drinker. So when I open a bottle of good wine to cook with, more likely than not it will go stale before I have a chance to use it again. Enter the intelligent wine cork from a company called Wine Doctor. The Intelli-Stopper is a "cork" that preserves the freshness, aroma and flavor of wine stored in opened bottles. A pump works in combinatinon with the Intelli-Stopper cork to remove the right amount of air from bottles ensuring that, even days later, wine will be as fresh and fragrant as when it was opened. Hooray, it really works! No more expensive bottles of wine down the tubes.

"Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories From a Summer in Poland" by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target (Tabula, 2011) is, simply put, a beautiful book. It's as much travelogue as it is memoir as it is cookbook. The author takes you on a trip through the rural Poland of her childhood captured in stunning photographs and onward to Warsaw, Poznań, the Tatra Mountains, and the Baltic Sea. It will make you want to drop everything and book a flight to this often-overlooked beautiful country. Expect three more books based on fall, winter and spring from this author. "Rose Petal Jam" took first place in the 2012 About.com Readers' Choice Awards in the Favorite Eastern European cookbook category.

Eastern Europeans favor the sour Morello cherry in everything from soup to jams to sauces. But you don't have to be Eastern European to like The Gracious Gourmet's Spiced Sour Cherry Spread that combines Morellos and tart cherries, spices and red Burgundy wine in a delightful conserve that is wonderful with poultry, pork, game, cheeses and desserts. More good news is this condiment won a gold award at the 2011 Fancy Food Show in Washington, D.C. But best of all, the spread is all-natural, vegan and gluten free. Check out The Gracious Gourmet's other products.