Valentine’s Day: We treat it like a food holiday, and it is, but to our minds, a delicious present reigns supreme over dining out. Why not present your loved one with something you can both consume immediately rather than going to a packed restaurant where the staff is harried?
The best thing about these gifts is that they’re just as delicious when sent to a platonic loved one—your mom; your granddaughter; your best friend—as they are when sent to your heart’s desire. Here’s what makes each of our top picks pitter-patter worthy.
La Quercia prosciutto? Cowgirl Creamery triple crème? Check and check: This all-American dreamboat of a cheese and meat board is speaking our language with a “just the hits” approach to charcuterie. It’s got dried California apricots that are tender and sweet, plus fats dates and raisins from that great state. Cheese includes both the triple crème and an unctuous blue from Point Reyes. Add Michigan cherries and Cali honey, craft salami and tender organic walnuts—plus a map and a broad red oak board so you can set everything out beautifully—and you will thrill the recipient.
Made in Paris by a master chocolatier, legendary La Maison du Chocolat is beloved by chocolate aficionados. Exquisitely precise, never-too-sweet, and as beautifully tempered as they are creamy, this heart-shaped selection fulfils the desire for tradition without sacrificing taste. Flavors include raspberry, lemon, Grand Marnier or rum-flambéed raisin, praline with crisp slivers of crepe and coffee, and hazelnut gianduja. Tiny chocolate beads make the presentation delicate and luxe at once.
Ideal for Valentines with a sense of humor, these sweet cookies are a welcome relief from the over-the-top saccharine aspects of February 14th. “We go together like…” adorns one cookie; a mustachioed bacon slice and smiling fried egg adorn the other two cookies. It’s an ideal gift for a relationship within the first year of its existence… or your 25th Valentine’s Day together. It’s not a gift for showboats, but it’s just perfect for the rest of us.
4. Love is Love Cocktail Glass
Here’s the gift you can give any coworker, family member, friend or loved one of any stripe. An Old-Fashioned glass with “Love Is Love” inscribed in 24-karat gold type. Tiny hearts and a gold rim adorn the glass. We donate 50 percent of the purchase price to The Human Rights Campaign to end discrimination against LGBTQ people. Now that’s putting your money where your heart is.
For cooks who think their kitchen already has everything—bet they don’t have this. A heart-shaped Dutch oven from the company that helped popularize gorgeous enameled cookware stateside, this Le Creuset comes in 1-quart and 2-quart sizes. It’s just the thing for heart-shaped brownies and frittatas, molten chocolate cakes and Dutch babies.
You really love them and you really mean it and you want to make a splash? Make their coworkers gasp with this incredible 10-tier macaron tower. 240 French macarons nestle together in flavors like red velvet, s’mores, key lime, cookie dough and thin mint. Award-winning New York pastry chef Dana Pollack outdid herself with these.