Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air – explode softly – and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth – boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap, either – not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. ~Robert Fulghum
Or maybe, we could launch fabric…
and thread…
and yarn.
How’s that for a secret weapon?
I’m sure many of you remember the Iraqi Bundles of Love project, or IBOL, from last year. Art La Flamme (affectionately known as IBOL Guy), is back with IBOL II: Give a Little. For those of you not familiar with the effort, Art was serving in Iraq when he started a grassroots campaign to ship sewing supplies from the US to Iraqi families, individuals and sewing co-ops. The sewing, knitting and craft community responded en masse, shipping nearly 3500 bundles of supplies to a US military address where it was organized and distributed by US service men and women to Iraqi aid organizations.
Although last year’s effort was a huge success, the need is great, thus phase two of the project. IBOL II packages will be distributed in Salah and Din, around the area of Tikrit in northern Iraq. You can send fabric, thread, yarn and notions. Check out the IBOL blog for detailed information about what to send and how to package it. (Please note that a customs form is required, but the shipping costs are the same as mailing within the US.)
Last year we at Sew,Mama,Sew! were honored to be able to participate by putting together and selling 161 bundles of fabric and notions. We procured supplies at a great price and offered it at cost to people (many of you!) who wanted to support IBOL but didn’t have a huge stash to share. (After it was all over, Art and his wife, Kristin La Flamme, were kind enough to pay us a visit! See IBOL Guy in the SMS “secret lair”.)
This time we’re doing something similar. Art mentioned that many people sent yards and yards of fabric last year, but the overall supply of thread was a little skimpy. It makes sense–we all have beautiful, uncut fabric on our shelves, but we don’t have many spools of thread that haven’t been partially-used. We anticipate there will be a similar imbalance this year. To compensate somewhat, please help us provide 300 Iraqis with a bundle of thread, needles and pins by buying an IBOL II Stitch Bundle for $4. Each individually-wrapped package will include:
- 2 spools of white thread
- 2 spools of black thread
- 1 spool of natural thread
- 1 pack of sewing needles
- 1 pack of straight pins
The $4 selling price is below our cost and includes packaging and shipping fees to the IBOL APO address. (A big thanks to Marshall Collins at Petersen-Arne for giving us a great deal again.)
Purchase an IBOL II Stitch Bundle for $4 now! Help us send these much-needed supplies to Iraqi families and sewing co-ops. The shipping deadline is October 1, so we only have 2 weeks. And please spread the word. Thank you so much for your help.
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And now, to change the subject completely….
We’re thick into our Handmade Holidays planning. If you’ve followed along in years past, you know that we always include a recipe for a fabulous giftable food. To qualify for Free Fabric Friday this week, please tell us about the best food gift you’ve ever given or received. Five winners will be randomly selected to win one yard of fabric on Monday. Peace!
» Contests & Giveaways, Sew Good (Charity Sewing) » IBOL II and Free Fabric Friday
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255 Responses to IBOL II and Free Fabric Friday
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Best gift I received was homemade fudge. So yummy!
The best food gift I ever received was a box of Mrs. See’s toffee. It’s the one that comes in a large rectanglular shape with a cute little silver hammer to break it into pieces. It was a Christmas gift many years ago and was such a delicious treat. I live in the South and had never heard of Mrs. See’s. But now,thanks to the magic of the Internet, I can get some for myself any time.
I made treasure cookies in a quart jar and gave them to friends and my children’s teachers for Christmas gifts.
Favorite food gift ever? A package of Chips Ahoys, from my sweet fiance, way back when there was only one kind!
thanks for stepping up again and making it easy for us to contribute to IBOL II! i’ve already sent some fabric…now for the thread and needles.
it’s hard to choose just one favorite food gift but one that comes to mind is the year that my son, his girlfriend and i made homemade marzipan. we had a ball forming unusual shapes and then painting them with food coloring. my favorite was the “Marzi-Panda” LOL.
We regularly give homemade, fresh-baked bread. Not sweet bread, but bread-bread. It’s always well-received!
Lovely idea and I am so glad that you guys are participating again this year!
My favorite food to give is almond roca. It’s delish and not too hard to make. According to a friend it has a fatal flaw though- a shelf life of only 3 days! (That’s how long it took him to eat it. 🙂 )
Please send address. What a great way to lighten the “stash” with no guilt.
The best food gift ever – after my first daughter was born, our friends and church feed us for two weeks. It was a wonderful gift to not have to worry about cooking dinner, and the dsserts were fabulous! I love to give to new moms that gift of a ready-made dinner.
Definitely serving size frozen lasagna and other food from my mother to stock my freezer for after my son was born! Was so helpful not to have tom worry about where our next meal was coming from.
Best gift I received was homemade fudge. So yummy!
The best food gift I ever received was some starter dough for this amazing bread. It took a little work but it really was good and the adventure of it fun.
Oh that would have to be my grandma’s rum cake with black walnuts. It’s often requested by the friends & family to be their birthday cake (even though no icing!) and it’s a favorite holiday gift as well!
Best food… Ina Garden’s Coconut Cupcakes when I was having a melt-down day as a new Mom. They’ve never tasted quite as good as they did that day!
A chocolate and a bottle of wine brought to me after I had delivered my son. A perfect gift for a new mother.
I live in Georgia, and all my family is in NY and PA…so I always head for the fresh Georgia peaches! This year they’re getting peach jelly (a perennial favorite), and ginger peach jam, both recipes from the Ball Blue Book.
Best food gift I ever made was edible cookie decorations for my Mum, they were soooooo soggy and inedible on Christmas day. Bless my Mum, as all Mum’s do, she ate one and said it was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten! Well, I had one too, spat the first mouthful out and told my Mum ‘she had no idea what tasting good was’, as you can imagine all very amusing years later…especially now I am a Mum and have all that to look forward too. I’d do it too and I can only imagine the reactions from my two boys…GRIN! Love it!
the best food gift is at a potluck when someone else remembers my gluten and dairy free intolerances, and goes to the trouble of making something delicious – always so thoughtful
Homemade candy–toffee. It was so good I had to learn to make it myself–not so hard.
I love to give organic homemade apple butter. It’s quick to whip up, and it supports the local organic orchards.Put a dollop on toast or cottage cheese, and you’ve got an easy peasy treat.
Definitely the jar of whole-grain waffle mix my mother-in-law gave me last year along with some maple syrup and homemade jam.
Vermont maple syrup!
Awesome cause! I hope the IBOL II Stitch Bundles sell out!
The best homemade food gift I’ve ever received was fresh blueberry preserves with ginger. mmmmm
Freezer cookie dough for those unexpected guests.
I like hot cocoa mixes!
What a great effort. Best food gift was the dry ingredients for oatmeal cookies in a jar with the recipe attached. I loved it.
Spiced candied pecans. I could not stop eating them. I made them for people the next year and tested several recipes before I found one that wasn’t a disaster. Me and paying attention to sugar on the stove top do not mix. Luckily I found one done entirely in the oven.
Chocolate from back home is always a welcome gift here.
Canned homemade soup and applesauce!
I make homemade apple pie filling every year and then bottle it and give it away with an awesome dutch apple topping recipe.
Apple Butter..for sure!
I make toffee for friends and family every Christmas from a secret family recipe. Everyone starts asking around October to make sure I plan to make it again!
i have a few male in-laws who are very tricky to buy/make for so each year i make them a gift box each of homemade goodies. the winners are coffee bean almond toffee (very grown-up toffee!), fudge or truffles, coconut ice and rocky road. every year they look forward to what will be in there xmas chockie boxes. this year i think i will include the older nephews too as they usually try to steal their dads treats before the day is over!
and kudos on the IBOL packages, i will put my order through too.
The best food gift for my family is my Aunt Lois’ nuts breads. Small loaves of apricot, cherry, banana choc chip and poppyseed. Yum!
My best food gift is from my Mum. Her home-made chicken soup when I am sick. I don’t know if it’s the ingredients, the love or the fact that I didn’t have to make it, but it always makes me feel better.
hand-rolled chocolate truffles! gifted by me. and I just love rolling them by hand…
I made a jar of oven dried tomatoes, with homegrown basil, garlic, sea salt and organic extra virgin olive oil. I found the recipe after following loving link from Maya Made to Nelkin Designs. I used grape tomatoes and after they had been dried they were so sweet my kids thought they were candy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IBOL is such a wicked idea – thanks for making it easy to help out. I recently gave a friend some of my sourdough starter, which is kinda cool as it means I gave her a little bit of all her yummy sourdough bread from now on 🙂
best food gift? mom stuffing my freezer full of ‘mom cooked heat-and-eat meals’ every time she visits me.
Best food gift: some crackers, containers of spreadable cheese and hummus, some fruit, and a bottle of red wine…Christmas gift last year from a great friend. I’m usually the one who makes food and beverage-type gifts for Christmas so it was wonderful to receive one instead:)
Fawn
The best gift we got for the holidays were fairytale brownies from brownies.com!!! Amazingly good!
tamales. Hands down. I always use my in-laws’ recipe though, so I can’t help with a link!
What a great cause! Thank you for doing this.
I’d have to say the amazing chocolate raspberry cake I made last year. So delicious!
When we were young and broke someone gave us brownie mix in a jar, come January when we were eating on the cheap because we were still recovering from Christmas I whipped them up, such a nice treat!
mmm brownies..
Peanut butter fudge.
Chocolate covered PB balls!!!!
The best food gift I ever received was crab apple jelly that my Aunt made me. It was a lovely shade of pink and tasted wonderful! The best food gift I have given was apparently ‘Herbed Rice” which several of the recipients asked for specifically the next year!
Best food gift I’ve ever made–candied orange peels for my sister-in-law. She went crazy over them!
Years ago, I received a jar of white vinfandel jelly. It was soo yummy. Had wanted to try making jelly from wine, but never had. Figured it can’t be too difficult…it’s all grape jelly one way or another!
Mmmmmm Boston Brown Bread. We used to bribe our teachers with mini loaves of this every year growing up at Christmas time. So yummy with raisins and brown sugar, I may just have to go make some now!
Best food gift: one sister makes awesome plum jam and apple butter. The other sister makes great fruitcake. We look forward to them every Christmas.
Canned Jellies. To this day, my aunt sends me her apple butter, because I used to get up in the middle of the night when visiting, and sneak slices of homemade bread slathered with apple butter.
Nothing says love more than a jar of homemade goodness.
What a wonderful idea and way to help for a minimal cost.
The best food I ever received as a gift would have to be a box of chocolates, lol.
You cannot beat a 10 pound box of chocolates filled with yummy fillings.
Debbie
One of the best food gifts I’ve ever received was a nutroll from our neighbor on Christmas Eve for us to enjoy with our coffee the Christmas morning. It was absolutely delicious!
Wow, what a great cause! Thank you, Sew Mama Sew & IBOL Guy for doing this!
Best food gift? It’s gotta be the homemade cookies mailed to me during my first year in college. I was homesick & it was nice to have a little piece of home.
The best holiday treat is when my mom makes a her homemade Swedish tea ring and all the family is together for Christmas morning breakfast.
Chocolate mink bark.
I gave cherry jelly to a cousin from many miles away each year until the cherry tree quit producing this year. I’ll miss the tree and the beautiful cherries. The cousin came to our reunion each year and made the main dish. I was so happy that I could repay his kindness with his favorite treat.
I’ve been given mexican wedding cookies for xmas and they were delicious!
I love to give peanut butter balls (sometimes called buckeyes, but I’ve always called them peanut butter balls). And this year I plan to make vanillekipferl and some other fancy cookies.
IBOL Guy, you rock. Best food gift? Momma cooking for a week, when my children were born!
A gift we give to friends is a small jar of raspberry pepper jelly. Put it over a block of cream cheese and serve with crackers and you have an instant appetizer for any Christmas party. I make the raspberry pepper jelly in the late summer when raspberries are plentiful.
Best food gift ever: FABULOUS ginger cookies… when I was pregnant and both desperately nauseated, and always a little peckish. ;0) The sweetest part is that they were made for me by a lady in my office who was also pregnant, and we ended up delivering our daughters on the same day!
Wow, I’ve done “Operation Baking Gals” in the pase, and this is another wonderful cause to support!
As for the best gifted food… Anything my parents send me! I have lived 1000 miles from where I grew up for 10 years now, and I still get giddy any time they send me tastes of home! Cookies form the local chain diner are a favorite of my kids, while truffles from a local chocolatier are the favorite of my husband and me.
Homemade salsa, yum!
The best food gift I ever received was during the fasting month of Ramadan. The bushfires were near our house and train station and I had to come home from work on a train to station far away and my husband had to pick me up. I was stuck on the hot train going nowhere for more than a hour at one stage with no air conditioning and temps in the train at around 40deg C and unable to drink water! When my husband finally picked me up we weren’t even sure if our house would still be there or if we would be let back in to the suburb. It was almost time to break the fast and I had nothing prepared because I was home so late. My husband told me they had had a multicultural day at work and they had given him the left over food. We broke fast on that leftover food and it was wonderful. It tasted so good and there was just so much blessing in it.
When my nieces were young they gave everyone Rice Crispy treats for Christmas. They were SO GOOD! I still ask for them at Christmas.
What a great cause! I love that you support them.
The best food gift we ever gave was homemade pizza sauce, pizza crust and all the fixings to go with them at Christmas for various people. Everyone loved it because they didn’t have to worry about dinner at that busy time of year.
The best gift I ever got was a dinner delivered when I was a new mom of about 2 months and just home from a weeks stay in the hospital sue to Guilliane-Barre Syndrome. It was the best dinner I ever ate!!
The best food gift I was ever given was a basket containing some of the best sugar cookies I’ve ever tasted, a bag of frosting and a jar of sprinkles. It let me decorate my own cookies right before eating. It was fun and tasty!
The best food I’ve ever given was my homemade apple spice butter. So yummy!
flowerpower0097 at live dot com
It was such a joy to participate in IBOL last year. I am thrilled to assemble a box again!
About holiday food: My husband’s family has the tradition of making Moravian Sugar Cakes, a potato based, yeast dough coffee cake. I channel my mother-in-law and husband’s grandmother annually (using a huge inherited ceramic bowl) to make these cakes for friends and neighbors. But the best part of it is that I teach an annual Sugar Cake baking workshop for a youth organization. Each child goes home with a Sugar Cake for his family and a bit of knowledge about an immigrant group to this country.
Perhaps the best food gift I was given was the night we moved into our current house. We live in military housing, and the very first night we were in the house, one of our neighbors (now one of my best friends here) brought us dinner. It was nothing fancy, just extra of what she had made for her own family, but it was so nice to get that gift of welcome and so much better than the frozen pizza we had planned on eating!
Homemade vanilla extract is at the top of my list, followed by homemade Bailey’s Irish Creme. Yum.
Awesome what you are doing for Iraqis!
One christmas I gave my mom an easy bake oven. She had always wanted one as a child but never got one. 🙂
Hazelnut truffles at Christmas, Ina Garten’s recipe, not too sweet with lots of rich flavor
Once we got a case of bacon from a cardiologist; oh, the irony! My tastiest favorite was a huge tin of red and green M&Ms. Yum!
Every year my mother in law would give us a Maude cake. It has dried fruit in it, but it is not a fruit cake. It is made with graham crackers and dried fruit. Absolutely the best cake ever and my family always loved it.
Ok, this is a little different. It is food, but not human food. Well, it is human food, but not very tasty. I make dog biscuits b/c alot of my coworkers also have dogs. I use a simple recipe with peanut butter and whole wheat, roll them out, and cut out using a bone shaped cookie cutter. After they bake I stack them and tie with a ribbon. My taste tester loves them! Me, not so much.
I was given some truffles once that are still ingrained in my memory. They were made with Oreo cookies and Kahlua and they were sooooo good! The person I received them from said that they’re easy to make, but I’ve never been able to find the recipe.
P.s. The IBOLs are great (just purchase several)
I translated my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe into Japanese and gathered the dry ingredients from three different cities to put together a cookie mix in a jar. I gave it to a friend of mine for her children to bake over the holidays. I’ve never seen such happy or wired children 🙂
Best food gift I’ve received was some home made English Toffee with out the nut’s ( I’m allergic) from my Mother.
IBOL II is a wonderful idea: Congratulations to everyone who participates.
My best food gifts were those I received from my mother when there was no special occasion. It might have been homemade spaghetti sauce because she always made too much for herself. It could have been ried peppers or baked chicken or “this and that”–all of it brings back great memories.
Thanks very much.
The best food gift I ever received was when I had my baby and the local ladies brought me a real chicken pie for dinner. I love chicken pot pies, and this was one of those, but a whole pie pan made up like that. I had never had one before, and I just thought it was fantastic! Plus, I was so new to the community, I was shocked that the local ladies would bring me such a thoughtful gift!
Best food gift ever….homemade crabapple jelly and choke cherry jelly. I’ve been making the crabapple since I was a kid with my mom. Now, I’ve taught my brother and cousin to make it. We never have enough!
The best holiday food gift I’ve ever received was sugar in a jar that contained a real vanilla bean pod and a cinnamon stick. The sugar was wonderfully flavored (I used it in my coffee), and I reused that vanilla bean for quite awhile before the flavor disappeared. The jar was so cute too, and it would be really easy to personalize.
A couple of Christmases ago, my husband and I got some homemade cookies from one of our neighbors. There were several different kinds, plus some fudge. They were some of the best cookies I had ever tasted.
Homemade mango hot sauce from my brother.
I love giving a loaf of homemade bread along with a jar of homemade apple butter. Yum!
Best food gift I’ve ever given was home-roasted coffee beans (courtesy of my husband) and homemade biscotti in the most perfect snowman and santa tins – with small hat compartments (which fit the coffee) and larger body compartments (which fit the biscotti). I’ve never been able to match it.
The stitch bundles are a wonderful idea!
My best food gifts to date are preserves made from our organic farm – blueberry jam, apple butter or tomato marmalade are my repertoire so far- in lined drawstring bags I make. They are my favorite hostess gift; so much goodness to share PLUS those little bags are a great scrap-buster.
I love to give home made food gifts….a favorite ? Peppermint bark !
This year I will do those decadent chocolate World Peace Cookies.
Hooray for IBOL 2 ! …….& BIG Hooray for Sew Mama Sew for all
your help and participation !
I really loved when a friend gave me pumpkin chocolate chip bread. It is now one of my favorite holiday foods!
I make pumpkin-apple bread every year. It isn’t exactly Christmas-y, but there were loud complaints when I thought about doing something else. The recipe is from the yellow Gourmet cookbook!
when i was a student physical therapist, i had a lovely older woman patient bring me this delicious nut brittle-y sort of thing over graham crackers, complete with recipe written in copper-plate handwriting “to my favorite therapist”. it was just what a student needed!
I made homemade hot cocoas and marshmallows for Christmas gifts for my neighbors.
The best food gift that I have received is the latest meal created by my mother. She is the best cook around. And, she doesn’t follow recipes.
At the holiday time I love to bake. the ladies in the front office at the kids’ schools are often forgotten. So instead of just baking for the teachers they are added to the list. The first year I did it they were beyond tickled to each get Brownies, Blondies and Cocoa mix.
The best food gift I’ve ever received were some fabulous homemade pickles, straight from our neighbor’s garden. Yum!
My mom always makes these really great bran raisin muffins and made them as part of a meal for my family when I was sick and couldn’t cook. You’ve actually inspired me to make them today (find the recipe on my blog at http://monkeyseemonkeydo-jennifer.blogspot.com/2010/09/bran-raisin-muffins.html) Yum.
My favorite (easiest) food gift to give is a cranberry almond quick bread that is delicious, nutritious and I could make while sleeping. Always a Christmas hit!
These are such wonderful gifts for them. Last year I was able to gather 7 boxes with the help of my co-workers and family.
As a single parent, I look forward each year to my son cooking dinner for me on my birthday or Mother’s Day. He started to get seriously into cooking when he was 14. My daughter and I lived through the “French really creamy phase” and survived. Now he cooks local and simple (at age 22) and his meals are to die for!
Of course you always love anything your kids do, but … yeah… that French rich and creamy phase….oh boy. 🙂 Drowning in cream…. TO MUCH!!!
THe best food gift my hubby and I received was a laundry basket full of fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner. 🙂
Let’s see…one year a co-worker of mine put together little bags of sweetly spiced and sticky cashews that were divine!
The best food item I ever gave was fudge! yummy and just a bit goes a long way. My MIL also looks forward to my Seven Layer bars every year. 🙂 Best food gift I got? fudge and Seven Layer bars! 🙂
A big hunking piece of parmeasan.
Last year my husband brewed his own beer that we gave to our friends and family. We’ve also given homemade flavored syrups, baked goods, and breads.
it didn’t take much to prepare, but the best food gift i’ve ever given was pecans from our backyard last year. it was our first year in our first home and we were delighted to find out that we had pecan trees! so we spent all fall collecting them and ended up having so much that we decided to share them with friends and family!
Every Christmas I make a huge batch of candied nuts along with many other things to hand out to the kids teachers, mail deliverer, bug spray man, etc… well, every year I have an inner battle not to just keep the nuts all for myself. I’m not sure if all my giftees LOVE them, (I don’t know how they couldn’t) but they are my favorite holiday treat. Right behind that is divinity, fudge, cheesecake, okay I love holiday treats!!!
It would have to be a plate of raspberry bars for my birthday from my friend…all of them for me! I know it sounds selfish but my birthday is close to Christmas, all you December babies understand…
The best food I have ever been given was a surprise meal that was brought over when I was heavy with child. Homemade soup, rolls, and dessert still makes me smile when I think of it. Sometimes, the what doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it happens.
Last year, I made hot chocolate on a stick. It was so good. This year, we’re gonna add crushed candy canes to the recipe for minty hot chocolate. Yum!
A lady in my mom’s church always made the best chocolate covered mix stuff (cereal, pretzels, M&Ms, etc) each year, and I would eat most of it (if I could get away with it).
My favorite food gift to give is homemade jams. I make them in the summer and for Christmas wrap them up with a loaf of homemade bread.
An Italian dinner after baby number 5 was born. A friend went all out, and I was so thankful. YUM!
English chocolate.
Homemade caramels are the best things in the world to make, eat, and give. They are simple but so much better than store bought varieties.
My daughter-in-law gifts us with the best homemade pecan tarts every Christmas!
So I have to say that the best food gift I ever recieved had nothing to do with taste(although it was tasty) was the dinners that I recieved from friends and family for two weeks after my son was born. Even though I had to eat chicken 7 days out of the 14 and lasgna for 3. 🙂
Last year my daughter conned me into helping her make caramels for the office. I did since she works a lot and at the holidyas we all have way too much to do. Needless to say both of us had more than we needed for our friends, and the requests are already starting for a repeat performance
My mom always sends homemade peanut brittle and Chex mix. One of these days I need to get those recipes so that I can gift them as well. 🙂
My boyfriend made cherry cheesecake for me on our first Valentine’s Day. It was especially cute because he had to use the dorm’s public kitchen!
My husband bakes the best whole wheat bread from wheat flour he grinds himself. He gives it to the neighbors for Christmas and special occasions–they love to see him coming.
I love to give various homemade candies and baked goods at Christmas..nothing out of the ordinary, but just right for that time of year 🙂
My favorite food gift ever was homegrown, canned peaches, plums and green beans. SO GOOD!
I love homemade recipes. We had some friends make us Bacon-wrapped sausage bites that had been cooked in brown sugar!! Oh my goodness. We got the recipe and started making them when we were invited to a potluck. I think I have written down that recipe to give to others than any other food I have made!!
The best food gift I ever received was a large cheese pizza about an hour after I gave birth to our first child. My husband came riding into the recovery room with it on a white horse (not really) and I watched him hold our baby girl so gently while I inhaled the entire large pizza.
I love receiving home-canned goods, like delicious green beans or jelly or homemade pickles. Mmmmm!
For some reason, my family gives and receives cheese as a gift! We all love it 🙂
I’d like to make some homemade food gifts this year, so I look forward to the recipe you’ll post 🙂
What a wonderful project! I always love receiving those Mason jar mixes as holiday gifts. That way it can really be appreciated some cold, cold day in February, when we’re no longer sick of seeing Christmas sweets!
The best food gift I have given would have been the wedding cake I made for my sister’s wedding, and one for my friend’s wedding.
I am so in love with this campaign! My favorite holiday food gift ever was probably my mother’s Mexican Hot Chocolate. It’s so decadent, spicy, sweet and warming. She makes a concentrate that she gives us each a container of and we add our own warm milk. So yummy! I look forward to it every winter!
I just bought a bundle and hope that it will be put to good use and make someone very happy! As a grad student I don’t have a lot of extra money (especially to pay for shipping – and shipping from Canada at that!) so it was very nice to be able to help out in this small way.
I think the best food gift I’ve ever received is a plate of various different cookies. Every year during the holidays (Chrismukkah around here!) my friends Mo and Dilan make a bunch of different types of cookies and then go around to each of our friends houses and delivers a plate with two or three of each kind. If you want a little laugh, here’s a picture of me eating one of the giant ones from last year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/miss-print/4208174434/
My mom has a huge stash of thread from her surger…as well as decades of sewing supplies…she is happily packing them up to send to be put to good use.
So glad you posted this!!!
One year I made a bunch of those cookies in a jar mixes for gifts. I love them because you can make homemade cookies quickly.
I love giving almond spritz cookies at Christmas. They are delicious!
I love to make homemade marshmallows every year and give them with hot cocoa mix. My grandkids enjoy helping me make the marshmallows and it has become a wonderful Christmas tradition.
The best food gift I was ever given was one I get every year from a dear friend – rum balls! She makes them every Christmas and they are SO yummy!
I loved receiving gingerbread cookies during a holiday swap!
Best food gift I’ve received was See’s candy picked out by my mom–you can always tell when she’s picked out each piece because everything is dark chocolate with nuts and caramel. But last year I made and gave some of these beautiful and healthier food gifts: http://www.lucidfood.com/handmade-holiday-food-gift-ideas/
A box of godiva chocolates. I know it can’t be handmade and I hope that doesn’t put me out of the running. 🙂
The best food we’ve ever received wasn’t the best because of what it was (Though it was/is seriously good). Just after my husband and I were married my mother-in-law invited me (who had cooked maybe two meals in her life) to learn how to make her mother’s homemade chicken noodle soup and her grandmother’s sugar cookies.
The recipes she shared with me are still hands down the best ever I’ve ever cooked. But what made it so special was that she wanted to extend a helping hand to a brand new wife and give her confidence in the kitchen. (Something there isn’t a recipe for).
We shared laughs, flour spils, and a lunch with our husbands made by our own hands. It was perfect.
My aunts gave me a ‘survival pack’ — baguette, cheese, and some sausages — when they shipped me off to Scotland for university. They didn’t think the British would feed me good food. They were right, uni food was awful!
The best food gift I have ever given was the still warm from the oven sandwich ring delivered to my neighbors on the day they moved next door. This was the beginning of a valued friendship. The best food gift ever received were cookies baked by my daughter in her easy bake oven or the milkshakes my dad would make for me when I was sick as a child.
Best food gift I ever received was a home made mix for crazy oatmeal cookies that included mini m&ms 🙂
Best food gift I make annually is the Mexican Hot Chocolate mix in glass jars (topped with cloth and ribbon) made with grated dark chocolate, almonds, cinammon etc. It has a shelf-life of six months but I don’t know that anyone who has received it has kept it on the shelf that long!
What a great cause. My son just joined the Navy so the military movements and amazing generosity of our service people is something that touches me dearly. The most amazing food gift I ever received was Pumpkin Woopees. I love pumpkin anything and it was so yummy that to this day I still ask her to make them for me.
About 5 years ago I gave my Dad homemade peanut butter cups for Christmas. He gave me the container back within a week along with a request for more! He still talks about those peanut butter cups and with his birthday coming up I know exactly what to give him!
Chocolate-Coffee-Cake with Cocos!!The Best Cake ever!! I have eaten the halfe cake alone!!
The best food gift I ever received was some Whoopie Pies! Yum Yum!
Before Children – I would make these amazing pepper cumin cookies and pack it up with a nice half bottle of port. Very very adult yummy treat. The recipe is still available from the New York Times, its from 1996! Always seemed to please everyone to get something not so sweet and very special.
Thank you for this effort – I was wondering if IBOL was continuing. My best food gifts both came from my grandmother – one would be a big bag of pecans from the pecan trees in her yard or the caramel cake that she would bring with her when she came to visit.
Last week we attended a birthday party for my husbands Great Aunt Rita. It was her 100th birthday. I’ve never seen anyone so happy to receive the 3 jars of homemade jelly (crabapple, blackberry and muscodine) and 1 jar of homemade salsa we gave her.
We make hot fudge sauce that is sooo good. One year I made some up and packaged it in pint canning jars…yummy! Homemade granola is really good also.
Crazy, but our best food gift was burritos from a local place we’d never tried before. There was time when my baby was very sick and friends were bringing us meals (lots and lots of good ones), and one friend brought these amazing burritos. We discovered a new local favorite restaurant, and 10 years later still think of our friend and our sweet daughter when we eat there.
best food gift…was the food my church members brought to my house after my children were born…not sure what food it was, but that i didnt have to cook it was marvelous!
I made an awesome fudge sampler for gifts last year: salted bittersweet fudge with pecans, almond and toasted coconut with milk chocolate…divine.
The best food gift I’ve ever received is a big box of Lindt chocolate balls all to myself 🙂
Every year my uncles make a yummy treat for everyone for Christmas. Last year it was a pumpkin bread that was delicious AND they gave them out in the decorated ceramic loaf pan it was baked in!
Last year I gave out little mini loaves of homemade almond poppyseed bread with a citrus glaze to my neighbors. I love that bread and had a hard time giving it away!
I’ve got four bundles for IBOL all packed and ready to take to the Post Office! (And a couple more stacks of fabric in need of boxes! Yeah! Peace in a Package!!)
I make some sort of food gift for my husband’s cooworkers every year. I think my favorite was the little pan of homemade fudge and caramels, packed in those mini aluminum bread pans with the clear lids. I used my scrap booking supplies to make personalized “Tags” that fit in the lids.
The best food gift I ever received was from my girlfriend who did all of my Christmas baking for me one year. It was such a blessing, because I was so busy there was no way I would have been able to do anything, and my kids and family were still able to enjoy the treats of the season!
My best food gift wasn’t so much the meal but the timing ~ my new baby was already 3 months old, but I had just come down with an infection and was super tired and feeling down. Then another woman from our church popped by with a meal unexpectedly (and she didn’t even know I was going through a hard time), and she even apologized for not getting one to me sooner. It was just the pick-me-up I needed!
last weekend my sewing buddy brought over her sewing machine, fabric, pattern… and a half-dozen brown sugar pound cake cupcakes!!! it’s the best because it was a surprise!
hhmm I must say anything covered in chocolate is amazing. Every year we get a batch of German Chocolate cookies that are soooooo good…between me and my husband they are gone in 2-3 days. 🙂
Best food gift was when we brought my son home from the hospital. A good friend came over and didn’t bring a casserole, but brought lovely ingredients and assembled a soup right on my stove, filling the house with good smells and feelings of “rightness” that only come from food made in the kitchen. I love her for that and always try to do the same thing. (The dishes she washed while it simmered were wonderful, too!)
I once gave my co-workers homemade cupcakes in a variety of four flavors as their Christmas presents: coconut, chocolate peanut butter, gingerbread, and chocolate mint. They loved ’em!
My favorite cookie gift was Italian Almond cookies. I wish she would have given me the recipe along with them.
Vanilla extract! It’s expensive and I’m always running out. My friend gave me a HUGE bottle of the homemade stuff and it will definitely get me through holiday baking!
When I was first learning to cook, I made my dad peanut brittle and hand made chocolate truffles.
A variety of hot chocolate mixes…white cocoa, milk cocoa, dark cocoa…yum!
Homemade white chocolate covered pretzels with pieces of mint mixed into the chocolate.
It’s not that exciting, but I loved the drink mix I received one year that could be added to apple cider or red wine (or a mix of both) to make a mulled wine. So easy and longlasting and very satisfying during the holiday season.
My wonderful Grandma makes us all a box of our own Christmas cookies every year. We love them!
I LOVE the idea of IBOL – kudos to you folks at SMS for spreading the word and supporting this worthy cause!
As for food gifts, the best one I’ve received is a batch of homemade baked caramel corn – completely addictive sweet and crunchy goodness. My favorite food gift to give is a big mason jar of sand art brownies. It’s a quart size mason jar filled with homemade brownie mix layered in the jar ingredient by ingredient so that it looks really pretty. It’s our go-to gift for neighbors and my kids’ teachers and friends because even though they’re only 4 and 3, they can help put the ingredients in the jars.
My mom has a recipe for brownies in a jar. All of the dry ingredients are layered into the jar and then instructions are attached so the recipient can make themselves a most delicious pan of warm gooey brownies! We used to make these all the time for school teachers. And sometimes just for ourselves! So good!
One grandma would give me Frango Mint Chocolates every year – yum – but possibly the best was my other grandma who made lefse every year and one year, the best gift? She taught me to make it and I now make it for MY family.
I am going to secong handmade caramels. Really pretty easy!
My favorite gift food is candy canes with chocolate and sprinkles on them to stir hot chocolate. Delicious!
Hmmm.. a homemade chai mix and also homemade pepper jelly!
one of our neighbors always did the BEST neighbor-gifts of food – the best was a pretty tray set up with a delicious quiche, coffee, and a mug. such a cute idea for a christmas morning breakfast and beautiful presentation, as well.
Best food gift? Definitely the candy samplers that my sister and I made one year for gifts for the family. For about 5 years we made food gifts for all the extended family to save money and spread cheer. One year it was loaves of bread, another coffee cakes, etc. But the best year by far was when we made candy samplers. They included: cream cheese mints, praline pecans, sweet roasted nuts, caramels, and chocolate covered butter toffees. It was an adventure to make them all and the thanks we received was profuse!
My moms peanut butter balls. She made them every year and only at Christmas, which made them taste even better.
best food gift – homemade canned spaghetti sauce with some fun dried pasta. Yummy!
My favorite gift that I have given were decorated sugar cookies as favors for my wedding. Three days before the wedding, I made 200 cookies cut out in shapes of wedding cakes, hearts and wedding dresses and iced with royal icing. I bagged them individually with a note thanking the guests for coming. It was so much fun to do!
Mmm, I’d have to say my favorite food gift was from a good friend freshman year of college-she made buckeyes for everyone in our dorm. Om nom nom.
I don’t know about the best – but my mother did give me a 5 pound bag of gummy bears as a gift once! 5 punds is a LOT of gummy bears!
i know this is classic, but the best so far has been a really delicious, thick, gooey homemade chocolate sauce. so good for so many things!
The best gift is my Mom’s English Toffee. She makes it during the holidays and it’s to die for!
The best food gift is always something I wouldn’t spend the money on for myself. Like Starbucks coffee and truffles. Yummo
The year that I made chocolate covered orange peels, everybody went crazy! Took a lot of work, but was well worth it 🙂
Mmmm — tough call, but I think my favorite food gift was a collection of really good quality spices. It made me feel so spoiled!
I am currently sifting through my ridiculous stash for IBOL II! Thank you for helping too!
The best food gift I ever received has to be a couple of family recipes! My Great Aunt Mildred’s version of Chex Party Mix and her take on Sweet Potato Casserole and My Grandma Porter’s Chocolate Drop Cookies. These are staples of our Fall football watching and Winter Holiday meals and parties!
Thanks for the chance to win!
homemade carmels, hands down, made with butter and cream. Perfection
My best food gift is something really simple, but it was one that made my life so much better. I had to start eating a gluten free diet in 2007, and missed good bread so much. Last winter, my daughter sent me a loaf of Udi’s Gluten Free bread. I had no idea gluten free bread could be so good. I can actually make a sandwich now.
The best food gift I have ever gotten was my favorite homemade strawberry cake from my mother. Those are precious memories!
Opps, I forgot to mention my food. The best food I’ve been given was a really basic chicken and rice meal. So basic that I could have made it. The best part was it was a gift after we’d had our 2nd child. It meant the world to me that I didn’t have to cook in that first week home from the hospital.
When I was in college, living in a dorm room, eating (and overeating) dorm food, ramen, and microwave popcorn, my mom sent me care packages. The best ones had homemade zucchini bread in them; breakfast for a week and always enough to share with my roommates. 🙂 I make it myself now, but it’s still always better when she brings a loaf over.
What a great idea, I hope you’re able to send a lot over.
I love Greek food. And I have a friend who loves to cook ethnic dishes. So when she cooks Greek, she always brings me some. LUCKY ME!!!
I think a glass of handmade Pesto is always a great gift. I love the cassic pesto with basil, but there are also great recipes for red with pesto with dried tomatoes.
the best food gift ive ever received was a big batch of the gooest chewiest crispiest rice crispies. its one of my favorite desserts and my friend had found a special recipe for it. it was so delish!
The food gift that comes to mind was a wedding gift. Italian friends of ours filled a beautiful handmade basket with all kinds of Italian specialties, some of them from their own farm: olive oil, balsamico vinegar, pickles, canned vegetables and a bottle of wine. We still have the basket, 17 years later, to remind us of our friends!
The best one received was my aunt’s pralines with whole halves of pecans and the size of a cup saucer. Deliciously creamy!! Thanks for the chance and all you do. Sending my IBOL package next week and will include some thread!
thanks for publishing info on IBOL 2. it’s a wonderful gift to the iraqi people and i’ve been packing my box for the last week and a half. almost done! and i’ve included thread again this year.
my favorite food gift given would probably have to be the several 1 lb bags of peanut m&m’s shipped to my hubby while he was deployed. they’re his favorite thing in the world and amazingly…we got married about a year later! maybe it was the m&m’s?
Actually, my husband was experimenting with peanut brittle last night, which will probably be my giftable food this holiday season.
Every year I make homemade caramels to give as a gift. I get requests for them, so I hope that people like them as much as I think they do. I love packaging them in pretty little boxes as much as making them.
The best cookies, or actually I would say candy I have ever had are these very thin round flat things. They are made out of a candied orange zest, and dipped in dark chocolate! I wish I knew their name, but since I received them as a gift, I have no idea. I would love to have them again!
Best food gift? Fresh bread, or homemade salsa.
Bourbon balls – cookies made with crushed chocolate wafers and bourbon!
The best food gift I’ve sent was boxes of homemade chocolates. A girlfriend of mine- who is a food stylist- and I spent nearly two days making everything from peppermint white chocolate bark to dark chocolate coated candied ginger and caramel. It was delicious. We wrapped them in vintage tins and mailed them across the country (not cheap).
The same girlfriend now sends us homemade goodies each year. My favorite was her lemon and candied ginger scones. Yum.
Best food gift: My dad always received a pack of pistachios from his work at Christmas time. My brother and I looked forward to that day, and when it came we all sat down and cracked them open and ate them up! It’s the memory just as much as the gift itself that’s important to me.
The best food gift I’ve ever received was a lentil soup mix in a jar. It was delicious and so good that I made jars up myself for Christmas presents the next year. Practically all my relatives got one!
I have a chef trained friend who makes truffles every year. They are delicious. I opt for a chocolate salted caramel recipe I got from Gourmet several years ago. It takes a bit to get used to the candy thermometer, but once I figured it out, it’s great! The result is amazing!
I always give food for the holidays, and living in the South, I try to send a little southern flavor to my friends and family up north and our west. Every year I send something home-canned, like bourbon peaches or pickled okra. This year it’s ginger watermelon rind jam. I also throw in something dry, like spiced pecans and our family’s famous Chex mix. That last one’s not specifically southern, I know, but it’s universally loved!
Every year the day after Thanksgiving my Memere and me would make her Plum Pudding. It would sit in the back of the fridge wrapped in it’s cheese cloth soaked with brandy until the week of Christmas. Then we would deliver it to her primary care physician who would beam at the delicious present that took 8 hours to cook and 3 weeks of setting to be just right.
great story about IBOL!! i’ve been taking baking classes at a chef school in the evenings, and i always bake something for get togethers or just randomly bringing treats to work. my two favourite things that i’ve given are individual mini apple pies for my neighbour (for shoveling the snow for us in the winter) and a tiramisu cake for my mom for her birthday, it was quite a hit! thanks for the free fabric!
As a kid, my grandmother would send us boxes full of snacks. From peanut brittle to chocolate truffles to peppermint cookies, it was amazing and yummy.
I love making and getting any kind of nut brittle. Pretty easy to make and a unique holiday treat.
Years ago, my manager at the tiny bookstore where I worked in college gave me a box of these uber-fancy chocolates. I don’t remember the name of the company, but they were both gorgeous and incredible.
I gave my family a bunch of canned goods that I made over the year last season. They loved it!
homemade sourdough bread and homemade soup mix
I was poking around the internet and found a recipe for “Hot Chocolate on a Stick”. I like to make a bunch and wrap them up to take to work. http://giverslog.com/?p=3290
Last year I was able to gift jars of honey from our first beehive to all my brothers and sisters. I was so happy to share the golden sweetness with them.
Last Spring a friend of mine from Germany brought over a rhubarb cake. It was exactly like the ones my German-American grandmother makes – soft and tangy-sweet, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar – but I haven’t tasted it for years. As my friend spooned lightly sweetened, softly whipped cream on top, I wept.
Best non-handmade food gift would definitely be Harry and David’s pears. Best handmade food gift is homemade vanilla extract.
A jar full of drinking chocolate (best hot chocolate mix) tied up with a bag of long skinny crispy – white chocolate dipped white chocolate cranberry biscotti
Well It’s not easy to wrap of, I’ve surprised my sister with a lasagna on Christmas while she had no propane to make a Christmas Dinner.
I love giving Jello Popcorn! Thanks for the chance!
When I had my second child I received these amazing chocolate like brownies. They were delicious! Not a typical brownie at all!
Best food gift received – handmade chocolate dipped caramels. Yum!
mmm…homemade granola bars. i got them this summer and they were so good!
I am an executive assistant in London UK. My boss is seriously hard to buy presents for… so I always make him a Liqueur and a cellophane bag of biscotti. There are lots of recipes on line. Last year I made Raspberry Gin and Limoncello in two separate little bottles with a bag of lemon and almond biscotti. I always wrap them in a brown paper bag with some sparkly ribbon – I’m not sure if he ever drinks or eats them – but he’s always very gracious about it! It’s a great way to kill lots of birds with one stone. Will be starting more berry based Gin in time for Christmas this week!
Go IBOL! I love to give and receive cheeses that I can’t normally find.
My best food gift that I’ve received was some chicken and dumplings made from scratch. A neighbor, that we didn’t know very well, brought it by shortly after we got home from the hospital when our son was born.
The best food gift I ever received was homemade toffee when I was teaching. The parent was kind enough to teach me how to make it, so now I can send it for my son’s teachers.
I hate to be cheesy, but really the food gifts that have been given out of love were all the best. Even if they didn’t taste fabulous or look magazine-worthy, they were wonderful! Oh, but have you ever tasted Chocolate-Caramel Crackers? Um, totally addictive!
The best food gift was an apricot walnut roll. I don’t even like apricots, but this was delicious!
Cream cheese spread with dried cranberries and cinnamon – packed in a little crock with a spreader included. Great on toast and bagels.
I recieved and now I make a sweet chex mix with cranberries in it – the salt and sweet are delicious!! I’d love to share it!
I always give homemade cocoa. There a tons of recipes out there but mine is from the late 70’s and is super rich. I place the mix in a fabric bag and it makes a pretty gift.
The best food gift I have ever received was a large basket of local farm raised beef, pantry items, wine and clementines from my parents. We loved cooking with all of the food!
best food?? umm peanut butter dessert from rachel griffith’s blog (ps i quilt) the best dessert ever and everyone i have gifted it with at the holidays loves it!!!
http://www.psiquilt.com/2009/03/rachels-peanut-butter-delight_09.html
A box of humongous soft molasses cookies- they weren’t my grandmother’s but they were the closest to her perfection I have ever tasted.
my friend baked me some cupcakes with different colors and arranged them in a catan map for my birthdays, they’re so cute.
wow- great innititative- i havent heard of it before, but will definately contribute. the best food gift received, would have to be the amazing train cake my son’s nanny made him for his second birthday last week- it was fantastic!
Pumpkin bread. I had it at a friend’s house, she gave me the recipe, and it is the best thing ever. It would brighten almost anyone’s day.
One time when I was sick my friend came over and made me The Most Delicious Split Pea Soup in the Entire World. And cornbread that melted in your mouth. This was YEARS ago and I still remember exactly how it tasted and how it made me feel. I was better in a snap!
I think maybe you guys were looking for something a little more “giftable” but for me it was the perfect gift! 🙂
Genevieve
My best food gift was our wedding cake. It was made by a special friend as their wedding gift to us. The love and care she put into making the beautiful roses on the cake was amazing. The roses looked so real (they even had dew drops on some of the leaves).
I gave a mix for turning old bananas into banana bread – everyone used it within a month or so!
popcorn ball ornaments! yummy to eat on xmas eve 🙂
What a wonderful cause to support!
The best food I was ever given was a piece of chiffon cake with fresh fruit and marzipan frosting(?) as a “welcome to the office” gift. To this day I have no idea what it was called or where it was purchased, but I still think back fondly on that delicious cake!
You guys totally rock!!!
Best food gift ever– play dough cookies from my daughter!
Kristin, thank you so much for doing this. And thanks to your crew, too — it’ll be a lot of work to make and send these all off. And please, pass along my / our thanks to Marshall for his support as well. This is awesome.