Simple gifts from the garden

Have you ever been stuck for a hostess gift? I was in that position a few
weeks ago and the pressure was on (big time). You see, we were going to a
book launch party for a chef friend of ours – Paul Luna, formerly of Il
Fornaio, San Jose – and I hadn’t really thought ahead about a host/hostess
gift.

What to bring an incredibly talented chef as a small token of our esteem?
Flowers or wine seemed wrong as a) Paul is a man, and b) it was an
afternoon event with children present. It was too late to order some of
our favorite chocolates from John & Kiras, and not enough time to get up
to Miette in SF. So I ran out to our garden and found a beautiful bunch of
French sorrel growing in the raised herb bed. The colors were lively and
beautiful and I spontaneously decided to make a “chef’s bouquet” so he
could create something truly wonderful with it (which we later found out
he did!).

Note that this is just an inexpensive glass jar from IKEA with a simple
brown ribbon to mark it as a gift. I thought it came out rather nice,
don’t you? Paul and his girlfriend, Cynthia, loved it as well and
displayed it at the party.

So here’s to the humble backyard garden as a source of great gifts!

Kathy

[Photo by Kathryn Besser]