Gifts for "kitchen people."

You’re reading This Heaven Gives Me Migraine, a shopping newsletter about searching for lasting pleasures in a world of disposable garbage. This month, we’re rounding up gift ideas five at a time, each centered around a theme.

I don’t know anything about the comedian Ian Karmel. I didn’t even know he existed until I saw this tweet the other day.

I’m someone who has written more than her fair share of gift guides for various publications. In fact, I pretty quickly became the person that the gift guides for men got fobbed off on, because nobody else liked doing it—but then I got kinda good at it, if the clickthrough rates can be trusted. So this tweet struck a chord. Because, yes. 99% of what you’ll find on any “gifts for him” roundup this time of year exists at a cross-section of the following relatively narrow, relatively Midcentury search terms: BBQ, fishing, bourbon, beard, camping, sports, meat. Maybe “vinyl” if the publication in question is a little more hipster-leaning. But that’s about as crazy as it gets.

I’m not going to get into a treatise on masculinity (in this economy???) right here in the middle of this newsletter, but I will say this: if your vision of masculinity is limited to the handful of keywords above, then that is a real bummer and I am sorry for you. But you can change! You’re only robbing yourself of the myriad pleasures of the world.

So: I’m not going to do a “gift guide for men.” Instead, I’m going to do the thing we’re all always being accused of not doing, and treat men as a less monolithic group. I’m going to treat them as individuals with their own distinct hopes and dreams and hobbies (dear god, please let them have hobbies) and you can decide for yourself whether any of the things in this (or any other) gift guide seem like they would appeal to a man in your life.

Anyway. What’s are “kitchen people”?

I’m not talking about the people who end up congregating in the kitchen during a party (because, hello, that’s everyone). I’m talking about the people for whom, party or not, the kitchen is the place where they feel most relaxed. In the zone. Zen, even.

I am not one of those people—yet. But! One day, perhaps I will be. So I’d better start buying stuff to prepare.

1) For naturals and neurotics alike: Combustion Inc. predictive thermometer & WiFi display bundle ($199)
This is one of those things I never would’ve bought for myself in a million billion years, and now I simply cannot live without. I was lucky enough to be gifted this fancy schmancy predictive thermometer (“predictive” meaning, as you might assume, it literally tells you when your food will be cooked through) by my thoughtful, considerate, and very-susceptible-to-tech-gadgetry-marketing brother.

I used it for the first time this year to make my Thanksgiving turkey, and good thing I did—because while I followed my (extremely neurotic) handwritten notes from last year to the letter, the turkey was done two hours early. I regret to inform you that, without this little probe pinging its data from the oven to the WiFi display base, I probably wouldn’t have even *peeked* at the turkey for another hour or so, spelling certain disaster for all involved.

Perhaps you know (or have already guessed) that I am not a chill person. This little device is amazing for that—it’s like having a much more experienced cook standing off to the side unobtrusively, just confirming every so often that everything is fine and on-track to turn out great. However, it’s also (from what I hear) an amazing device for people who are savvy and confident chefs, and are prone to doing much more ambitious things. Reverse-sear, sous vide—techniques I pretend to know about at parties but would never undertake. The Combustion Inc. reviews page is overflowing with people who spend every weekend dreaming up a new meat-based peak to scale—and swear that, because of this thermometer, they’ve never been happier with the results. It’s truly a level-up for anybody who spends any time in a kitchen, not just “kitchen people”. But I think “kitchen people” will especially enjoy it.

2) For people who studied abroad once and made it their entire personality: Milk Street Store cheese grotto, large ($350)

Okay. I’m getting out ahead of it: For many of you, this is not going to be a sensible purchase. But this is not a shopping newsletter for most people. This is a shopping newsletter for highly specific people—and so I know that, for one of you, out there, wherever you are…this cheese grotto is going to really hit.

Allow me a moment, if you will, for the practical benefits. This cheese grotto “creates a perfect microclimate in its interior via its eco-friendly materials.” (Doesn’t that sound comforting? I would like to curl up inside a perfect microclimate made of eco-friendly materials myself, but that is a conversation best left between me and my therapist.) It is both, in the long-term, more sustainable than wrapping your cheese in plastic; and in the short-term, more adept at preserving the cheese’s flavor, which is really the thing you bought the damn cheese for in the first place. And if you happen to be the sort of person who is already so effortlessly European that you leave your artisan cheeses out en plein air (nobody calls it this) on the counter, the cheese grotto provides a nice protective barrier from things like, oh, say, mice. Which I’m sure you don’t have, but remember, some of us live in houses that were built five full years before the invention of the Oxford Cloth Button-Down.

I won’t spill too many words on the downsides of a cheese grotto, because I can already hear you shouting them at me from the ether. It’s too bulky. It only serves one purpose and it takes up too much counter space. Sure, yes. To be fair, it is the largest (and most aesthetic) model. The manufacturer helpfully suggests that you can also store it in the refrigerator for even greater cheese longevity—but just look at it. This object was not made to spend its days in the chilly darkness of your Fridgidaire. It is meant to be seen and admired. If you do not have room for it, I understand, and I do not fault you. I just solemnly repeat: if you were this serious about cheese, you’d make room for it.

3) For tomato paste obsessives: Gill Mechanical Tube-Wringer ($34)

Unlike the first two items on my list, this is actually a pretty solid stocking stuffer slash small gift for pretty much any human on the planet, even if it seems a little anticlimactic at first. I was first turned onto the magic of the Tube-Wringer (TM? TM.) by Caroline AKA The Locavore on TikTok AKA a person who believes almost as strongly in IRL shopping as I do (and just happens to live in a much better city for it). Eagle-eyed viewers may notice Caroline demonstrating the Tube-Wringer’s magic on a well-loved tube of FINE deodorant, which is not why I love her TikTok, but it certainly helped.

The gist of the Tube-Wringer is that, unlike tube keys which, while also handy, must unfortunately remain attached to the tube in question for the duration of its lifespan, the Tube-Wringer is not a monogamist. The Tube-Wringer is here for a good time, not a long time. Which means that, five minutes after ripping your Tube-Wringer from its Dick Blick Art Supplies shopping bag (or Amazon box—we listen and we don’t judge), you will gleefully rocket from room to room, wringing tubes with wild abandon, from the kitchen to the bathroom to the paint shed and back again. You will feel (perhaps for the first time in a long time), pure, unadulterated joy—the joy of using a well-designed metal apparatus to squeeze every last drop out of the things you love, just as your scrupulous Puritan ancestors might have wanted you to. Probably for the first time ever, they’ll look down (up) at you and nod approvingly at your life choices.

The Tube-Wringing frenzy of that first day is not forever. When we grasp childlike wonder and delight, we must, as the Tube-Wringer teaches us, let it pass through us and then un-clasp and release it. But you’ll taste a shade of that exhilaration again, each new time you bring home an item housed in a humble tube. For a moment, then, you’ll remember the joyful catapulting through the house of that first wonderful day. And smile.

(The fact that this is a mechanical device does, in my experience, make it popular with men.)

4) For people who say “well, it’ll still taste good”: HAAND oval platter (from $75)
A caricature of myself might sit here and scrawl, “presentation matters.” And then go on an impassioned rant. But I will restrain myself. Instead, I’ll just say that even the most accomplished kitchen people often fall short when it comes to servewear. It’s a category that gets overlooked, and so wouldn’t it be nice if you would treat your favorite kitchen person to a beautiful handcrafted (yet durable—dishwasher and microwave-safe!) 13” platter. Or better yet, a 15” one. Or even 18”. So that they can show off their labors of love against a dramatic inky backdrop of mottled fern green—even if, as they say, it isn’t their prettiest meal to date.

See how easy that was? No lecture!

5)

1. For process geeks: Rancho Gordo Bean Club Subscription ($50 per quarter, once off the waitlist)
   
   If I haven’t cornered you to talk about the Rancho Gordo Bean Club yet, consider yourself living on borrowed time.
   
   I don’t remember how I originally found out about this strange little operation, just that the idea of a quarterly dried bean subscription with a legendary waitlist seemed impossibly chic to me. I must’ve imagined myself, momentarily, as a sort of homemaker Gwyneth Paltrow—retreating to my spacious pantry (which I don’t have) to select this or that rare, mystical, heirloom variety of dried bean (which I didn’t know how to cook). I signed up, certain that future-me would be well equipped to handle such a lifestyle if and when I reached the top of the waitlist.
   
   One day, they emailed: my time had come!
   
   Then, the beans started showing up.
   
   Reader, I had never cooked beans from their dried state. I didn’t even particularly consider myself someone who liked beans. But when the first shipment hit, with six or so bags of attractive but mysterious-looking beans from far-flung corners of the earth, I knew two things immediately: first, that I had overestimated my personal journey of growth in the bean department. And second, that I needed to develop a plan. Immediately.
   
   So I dug in. Each one-pound pouch of dried beans makes for about three pounds cooked beans, so I had a fair amount of recipe-wrangling to do—what, reasonably, can be cooked back-to-back with what else using the same bean, and what recipes can be doubled without sending a single bean-eater into insanity. I began trawling the NYT Cooking section with renewed vigor. I began a Notes App litany called “The Year In Beans.” There was, momentarily, a spreadsheet.
   
   Actually, it’s been great.
   
   The beans are excellent—excellent enough to convert me into someone who could self-identify as a “bean person” (I’m not being a lazy writer here—that’s how Rancho Gordo, a bit cultishly, refers to their members). The forced slowness of cooking them is probably a lesson of some kind in and of itself, but the pacekeeping I must do to ensure I don’t end up behind before the next shipment means I always have “a little project”. I’m leaning a lot about what beans are actually supposed to taste like.
   
   For me, sure, this would not have been an intuitive gift. It would probably have looked more like a spiteful, vaguely Sondheimian curse if someone had sent me a seemingly unending supply of beans, however rare and beautiful. But again: for the right person, this would be an incredible gift. The logistics of getting off the waitlist make gifting a subscription a bit finicky, but I think it’s still worthwhile—imagine the surprise and delight that a true “bean person” would feel, a few months from now, discovering that first shipment on the doorstep and learning they’d been chosen to join the flock. That there were others—dozens of us!!!—out there like them. And then, the many months of beautiful stews, chilis and soups that would follow. Truly, a gift that keeps on giving.
   
   Okay! That’s it. If you enjoyed this—or, maybe especially, if you purchased anything from this list—let me know. I don’t have affiliate links because I’m not a Real Person yet, so you can feel confident my recommendations are genuine. See you next week for 5 more gifts around another theme. Later.