Holiday Gift Guide for Home Cooks: Our Most-Used, Most-Loved Kitchen Essentials

Are you overwhelmed trying to find holiday gifts? Want to give a home cook a gift they will truly use and love?

If you’ve ever wanted to give a food friend a present that feels both thoughtful and useful, this episode is your guide. As two cooks who have spent countless hours in real home kitchens, we’re sharing the gifts that genuinely make a difference: reliable tools, pantry items that transform simple meals, and unique products that help people cook and host with more ease, beauty, and deliciousness.

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover:

1. A wide range of gift ideas — from edible treats to equipment upgrades — all items we personally use, love, and have gifted (or been gifted!) ourselves
2. Options across every price point, from everyday essentials to splurge-worthy standouts
3. Meaningful ways to give this season that support small businesses, local makers, and your wider food community

Tune in now for our curated list of this year’s most-loved gifts for home cooks and food friends!

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This episode is sponsored by Mill – the odorless, effortless, automated food recycler.

This time of year, we’re doing more cooking and hosting, which also means creating more food scraps. We love that with Mill, all those peels, bones, and bits don’t go to waste. You toss them in, and overnight, it quietly transforms everything into dry grounds. You can use them in your garden, add to compost, or schedule them to be picked up and shared with farms. 

Mill is the easiest way to prevent food waste at home. It’s one small action that makes a big difference for your kitchen, your family, and the planet. 

Add Mill to your wish list or gift one now! Their biggest sale of the season is on, and you’ll get up to $200 Off through Monday, December 1st. Missed the sale? You can still get $75 off anytime at mill.com/foodfriends with code FRIENDS.

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Links:

Kitchen Equipment & Serving:

Immersion blender

Bialetti/Moca Pot for Espresso Lover + Smeg Electric tea kettle

Holland Bowl Mill + Nice towels basic and fancy 

Enamelware, like the kind from Crow Canyon or Falcon 

Mill –  the odorless, effortless, automated food recycler

Everyday Kitchen Essentials:

Good-smelling fancy dish soap, like Koala Eco, or Heirloom Tomato from Flamingo Estate 

Japanese butter knife 

Earlywood flat wooden spatula

Aprons – Kari loves Hedley & Bennett, and Sonya swears by White Bark Workwear

Edible Gifts:

Good vanilla, like Kari’s favorite Heilala vanilla bean paste, or Sonya’s go-to Beyond Good pure ground vanilla 

Kishu mandarins from The Mandarin Man or a box of passion fruit from California

Freddy Guy Hazelnuts from Oregon

Rancho Gordo’s “20 Big Ones” gift box, or heirloom beans from Blue House Farm, 

Los Poblanos Albuquerque

Prana Kitchens Gift Sets 

Spicytude spice blends

Subscriptions: 

Thrive Market membership 

NYT Cooking App

Fun Gifts for Food Friends: 

Farmers’ market calendar or prints from  Aly Miller Illustrations

Gift card to your favorite local (to you) restaurant)

Culinary bookstore gift cards to: Book Larder (Seattle), Vivienne (Portland), Now Serving (LA), Omnivore Books (SF), Bonnie Slotkin Cookbooks (NY), or find a store near you

GIVING:

The Midnight Mission in Los Angeles 

World Central Kitchen 

Capaces in Oregon

Your local food bank

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Got a cooking question? Leave us a message on our hotline at: 323-452-9084

For more recipes and cooking inspiration, sign up for our Substack here. You can also now find us on YouTube. 

We love hearing from you — follow us on Instagram @foodfriendspod, or drop us a line at foodfriendspod@gmail.com!

Looking for an in-person Food Friends experience? Book a farmers’ market tour with Sonya in Portland, OR!