The Official 2023 Mess Hall Gift Guide
whimsy season
A brief note: THANK YOU to everyone who chimed in on last week’s cookbook discussion post. It was so fun (+ so edifying) to hear everyone’s thoughts on cookbooks….I didn’t know so many felt so passionately about INDEXES! (indices?) And thanks to ML, whose comment inspired me to buy these very beautiful sticky tabs. Take a peek at the comments if you haven’t. Very cool to have some thoughts in here from friends of the pod/idols of the pod Ali Slagle and Andrea Nguyen. I definitely want to do more of these in the future—let me know if there are any topics you want to discuss.
It’s time for the second-annual Mess Hall gift guide. (Last year’s guide holds up quite well, too.) This is a completely subjective and mostly directionless collection of things I like, own, want to buy, think you should buy me, or think you should buy someone you love. My therapist recently called me a gesture head—someone who is really into performing and receiving gestures—which I suppose is why I have so much fun putting this together. We’ve got some food stuff, we’ve got some home decor, we’ve got some things to read, and we’ve got some fresh-out-of-the-kiln Marian Bull Ceramics! At Mess Hall we believe in the evergreen corollary1 that IF you are going to be participating in shopping season, THEN you might as well have some fun with it.
Enjoy xx
DOMESTIC BEAUTY
Madre Linen Napkins
For years I have been looking for a set of napkins that are beautiful and sturdy, and I have finally found them—I recently bought a set of these deep blue napkins (medium size), a dark enough color to hide most stains. (I also want their cast iron sleeve in yellow)
A 1970S Ukranian ceramic Bull (?) decanter, plus a bottle of liquor to pour into it
I need one of you to buy this so I don’t buy it for myself
A beautiful hand-pained mug from Marian Bull Ceramics!!!
I’ve just released a very small holiday drop that I’m quite happy with. Mugs, cups, tiny spoons, platters, and extraterrestrial vases. Mess Hall subscribers get 10% off with code MESSY.
A hand-carved goose egg
Nothing says “I love you and I have great faith in your appreciation of beauty and whimsy” than an impractical, ornate objet
Italian Ceramic Dinner Plates (ideally a mix of turtle, octopus, dove, and fish)
We ate off of these at my second-favorite restaurant in Umbria, and I’ve been dreaming of them ever since. Loose and playful but still serious enough to eat dinner off of! If I sell [redacted amount of ceramics] in the next month I am allowed to buy myself a set. I also love this Chartreuse Chicken Charger.
Vintage Courting Candles….
Time to bring back and reclaim courting candles, which overbearing fathers once used to dictate how much time a suitor would get with his daughter (once the wick hits the top of the candle he’s OUT). Etsy is full of them.
….and tapers to put in them.
I like to buy plain beeswax tapers in bulk from Californian monks, but I also love the forest green tapers from Big Dipper Wax Works.
Hand-carved wooden bacon tongs
I picked up a pair of these from Chester P. Basil’s table at the Sheep and Wool festival last month, and they’ve turned into a surprisingly useful kitchen tool. Gentler than my industrial-grade kitchen tongs, good for flipping tortillas or bacon, great for serving. They’d pair well with four pounds of Benton’s bacon, my go-to food gift. CP Basil’s also has an excellent selection of left-handed utensils, which I appreciate as the child of a left-handed cook.
EDIBLE (+ DRINKABLE) SPLENDOR
The World’s Best Anchovies
I’m not particularly moved by the idea of gifting, like, sardines. But THESE? These are the caviar of anchovies, rated the world’s best, life-changing, giving charisma uniqueness nerve and talent etc.
The one thing I actually want from the strategist gift guide: fancy dates
Sending someone a box of Frog Hollow Satsumas is always a reliable choice BUT what I really want this year is a box of FANCY DATES. Imagine your beloved…..reclined on a chaise lounge…..slowly eating a box of fancy dates while reading Leonora Carrington…..that’s luxury baby
MESS HALL-APPROVED TEA
I’ve gotten really into tea this year. (Read all about it here.) A few of my favorites are:
+ Smoked Assam: like if they made lapsang souchong for toddlers (complimentary)
+ Mardi Himal: my new house favorite
+ Banapasty Assam: my favorite “neutral” (not boring) tea, great made into chai
+ Ruby Oolong: malty-toasty-gorgeous
A beautiful copper tea strainer
I use this every morning (though I don’t have the ceramic holder). It is exquisitely made, wonderful to hold, easy to use. Fits perfectly into a hand-painted ceramic mug……
Gay Caballero Hot Sauce
I never understood why people felt so passionate about, like, “artisanal hot sauce” until I received this as a present from my beloved friend Perry. It’s smoky and fruity and not so spicy that you can’t use a LOT of it.
TEXTUAL DELIGHT
A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION TO MESS HALL!!!!!
Wow. Don’t you love it here? I think your aunt/roommate/dad/cousin/coworker/pen pal/crush would too! Consider giving someone the gift of Mess Hall this holiday season. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE 25% OFF THROUGH THE WEEKEND!!
A cookbook they’ll actually use2
+ START HERE by Sohla El-Waylly: the best new “how to cook” book, hefty but worth it!, ideal for college grads/divorcees/science nerds/bakers who are also obsessed with dry brining, don’t let the cover design throw you off this book rocks
+ BAKE SMART by Samantha Seneviratne: now the giftee must bake you cookies
+ COMPANY, by Amy Thielen: now the giftee must invite you to a dinner party (read my review here)
+ VIBRATION COOKING, by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor: the ultimate memoir-adjacent back-catalog cookbook
+ AN INVITATION TO INDIAN COOKING: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION by Madhur Jaffrey: iconic and now with a beautiful new cover! Pairs well with Jaffrey’s great memoir, Climbing the Mango Trees
+ WOKS OF LIFE, by Bill, Judy, Kaitlin, and Sarah Leung: I’m obsessed with this book
+ THE EVERLASTING MEAL COOKBOOK, by Tamar Adler: for your friend who refuses to throw out the peanut butter jar even though it looks empty
+ THE OTHER ALMANAC 2024: not a cookbook per se, but a really wonderful document, full of seasonal reflections/learnings/suggestions/art, I do think there’s a recipe or two in there, ideal gift for your woo woo friend who is trying to grow asafoetida in their backyard and always knows what cycle the moon is in
ET CETERA
EGG CUBE (turns your boiled egg into a cube)
Meals Clothing Chef Pant in “Wine”
An elegant (and on sale!!!) Alessi pasta pot for the Tucci in your life
An oven thermometer (sometimes pragmatism is the greatest gift of all…)
happy shopping xoxo mb
took me four tries to spell this correctly
If you buy a book through one of these links I may earn a small commission. I’ve made just $20 over the past eleven months of affiliate links, so don’t worry too much about my “objectivity”, whatever that might mean to you. You can browse some of my favorite titles (divided into cookbooks, nonfiction, + fiction) here.
as a proud possessor of the Bake Smart cookbook... I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!
Carhartt makes a bento box? Who knew!