This is my 2024 Christmas and holiday gift guide for people who love to cook. I’ve split it by price. Enjoy!

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1. Naomi After-Cooking Hand Scrub

The hand soap for home cooks! Made by cooks in LA, Naomi After-Cooking Hand Scrub gets rid of cooking odors like garlic and seafood all while feeling/smelling premium like Aesop or Le Labo.

It’s amazing how well it works — it uses natural deodorants from bread yeast enzymes that break down odors. Jojoba wax exfoliants also help to scrub away grime, and those are much gentler on hands than other exfoliants. Since Naomi looks great in the kitchen and works well as a bathroom soap, you can pretty much gift it to anyone that likes food.

2. MISE EN PLACE containers

Plastic containers for storage and processing: I’m nothing without my uniform plastic containers, and I loveeee these ones — closest North American option to the ones they use in Denmark restaurants! They are dish-washer safe and air-tight. I store finished ferments in the fridge in these without issue for long periods of time.

Dispenser bottles: To save money, I buy products like neutral oil and white vinegar in bulk (sunflower oil, white vinegar) and keep a portion of each in easy-pour glass bottles. I’ve tried a handful of bottles but prefer the OXO Good Grip Precision Pour Dispenser for the speed of the pour, size, and ease of cleaning.

I also use the smaller soy sauce dispenser — but that’s mainly for soy sauce applications where I’m not too picky. For applications where the soy sauce is an important ingredient, I refrigerate soy sauce after it’s opened.

As for olive oil, where I’m very sensitive to an old or spoiled batch, I buy that only in small containers and keep it from sunlight.

Spray bottles: I keep small spray bottles (labeled of course!) for the liquids that I tend to “finish” a recipe with: white vinegar, soy sauce, citric or malic acid solution, and absinthe (for cocktails). These spray bottles have served me well.

Droppers: Meanwhile, for truffle oil (where absolute accuracy is critical to avoid something that tastes like, well, truffle oil), I prefer a dropper.

3. BooKS ABOUT COOKING

The Noma Guide to Fermentation: Noma in Copenhagen is often regarded as the best restaurant in the world. When Noma released their Noma Guide To Fermentation, it felt like a vault of secrets had been opened. With the book, Noma revealed that the magic behind their incredible dishes lies not in their use of rare ingredients or high tech gadgets but in their use of an age-old food preservation technique: fermentation. This was revelatory, because fermentation is actually pretty approachable.

With fermentation recipes for lacto-ferments, vinegars, misos, soy sauce, kombuchas, and even black fruits, this book teaches both the basics and the only-noma-would-think-of-this extraordinary.

See my Noma Fermentation Buyers Guide if you want to equip your gift recipient with all they need to create any recipe in this book.

The Wok: The Wok is more than just a primer on woks — it’s an introduction to the art and science of stir-frying, deep frying, steaming, and braising told through an appreciation of great Asian cooking. The Wok is written by J. Kenji Lopez Alt, perhaps the best recipe author of the internet era thanks to his approachable, evidence-based approach, so you can be sure that he’ll equip you with the tools to apply Wok-style cooking to any genre and technique.

Today’s Special: Today’s Special is perhaps the widest, most interesting collection of recipes I’ve ever seen: 20 leading chefs each choose 5 up-and-coming chefs to highlight, and each of those chefs share a handful of recipes. It’s like listening to a Greatest Hits album from 5 years into the future.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being: Not a cookbook, and practically not a book at all. In The Creative Act, Rick Rubin (a music producer who, while not a particularly skilled musician himself, has redefined rock and hip hop through his raw production talent) lays out a philosophy on the creative approach. The book, which is completely applicable to any art or industry, has the potential to totally change how you create new dishes.

Chicken and Charcoal: Is it just me? Or are yakitori parties the best dinner parties ever? With yakitori, you can do cooking prep in advance and get interactive with your guests as you cook and teach them a thing or two. Chicken and Charcoal is a highly approachable bible to yakitori from Matt Abergel, the chef behind Yardbird in Hong Kong, an authentic, edgy take on the Japanese staple.

The Third Plate: I’ll be honest — I thought organic was largely BS until I read this book. In The Third Plate (which isn’t actually a cookbook), Dan Barber walks readers through what the history of food can tell us about its future. Regenerative farming, ethical foie gras, farmed fish — Barber walks you through why some buzzed-about topics aren’t all BS, and he does so by going straight to the source to learn from farmers and chefs.

It makes sense, Barber (head of Blue Hill at Stone Barns and former council member of President Obama), is one of the most thoughtful humans on the planet when it comes to food, and he maps out his thoughts elegantly.

4. lacto-fermentation kit

Lacto-fermentation is the process that turns cucumbers into pickles, hot sauce into delicious preserved hot sauce, and cabbage into sauerkraut. Most folks use wide-mouth mason jars to ferment these (though in the $$ section of this gift guide, I describe why I prefer to use vacuum sealer instead of mason jars for certain applications).

When fermentation in a mason jar is doing its thing, air escapes. We want air to exit the mason jar so that it doesn’t explode from built-up pressure. But we also don’t want to let air in (because that can let the wrong bacteria take hold). This lid has a one-way valve to allow for this.

You also need a glass weight like this to ensure that the fermenting foods are submerged under liquid rather than exposed to air. This prevents spoilage.

You will also need a scale that measures to the gram, because most lacto-fermentation recipes require adding exactly 2% of the fruit or vegetable’s weight in salt. This one works very well for such a low price.

5. Vinegar fermentation kit

Unlike lacto-fermentation, vinegars need oxygen to ferment. To get started with vinegar fermentation, I recommend wide-mouth mason jars as well, but I close them with a kitchen towel and an elastic band.

If you want to dramatically speed up your vinegar production, you can speed it up by pumping in even more oxygen. I use one of these to oxygenate my vinegars.

If you’re planning on making vinegar from fruits or vegetables (which is descriped in detail in the Noma Guide to Fermentation), you’ll also need a juicer. I personally don’t have one of these, but my sister has this one and I’ve borrowed it. I highly recommend making celery root vinegar with this.

To take any vinegar to the next level, you can age it in an oak barrel. Beet balsamic, anyone? You can use this to age soy sauces, too.

6. FERMENTATION Food safety on a budget

Lacto-ferments and vinegars are preserved due to their high acidity. To make sure a given ferment has reached the appropriate acidity to prevent bacteria growth (4.6 pH), these pH strips are a simple solution.

7. Spoonula

I’m oddly obsessed with my spoonula. Combining the scooping power of a spoon with the scraping flexibility of a spatula, it has fully replaced my spatula and I’m okay with it.

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1. Vacuum sealer lacto-fermentation kit

Vacuum sealing is my preferred for lacto-fermentation (think pickles, strawberry flavor-bombs). Unlike lacto-ferments with jars, vacuum sealed ferments take up less space, require less equipment, don’t smell, and are less failure-prone. To lacto-ferment with a vacuum sealer, all you need is the fruit or vegetable of your choice, salt, and a scale. I’ve had this one for a few years and it has really held up well.

The vacuum sealer will come with a few vacuum bags, but don’t get suckered into buying spare bags directly from FoodSaver. I use these ones instead because they’re much less expensive and work just as well.

You will also need a scale that measures to the gram, because most lacto-fermentation recipes require adding exactly 2% of the fruit or vegetable’s weight in salt. This one works very well for such a low price.

2. Decorative miso fermentation kit

Since miso ends up sitting around your house at room temperature for many months, I prefer miso equipment that looks good in any room. I opted to get higher quality stoneware for my miso crock and keep it in my living room. It’s actually a fun conversation starter.

I have both a 1 gallon and a 3 gallon crock from Ohio Stoneware. The 3 gallon one is massive… I honestly feel like I have an endless supply of miso! And don’t forget the lid.

You’ll also need weights to compact the miso over time. If you don’t have it, be sure to buy some plastic wrap to put on top of the miso (under the weights), too.

3. DONABE

A donabe is a traditional Japanese earthenware pot, prized for its ability to retain and distribute heat evenly — making it perfect for one-pot meals. Used for centuries in Japanese cooking, donabes are versatile, accommodating everything from comforting hot pots (nabe) and soups to rice dishes and even steamed recipes. Cooking in a donabe enhances flavors and textures while creating a communal, cozy dining experience ideal for the colder months.

4. Food safety kit

Lacto-ferments and vinegars are preserved due to their high acidity. While pH strips can help to measure the acid in a given liquid, they are difficult to read when evaluating pH that is anywhere close to the target 4.6 pH level. pH meters, however, measure to the fraction of a decimal point — cutting out any source of doubt.

5. Fermentation chamber KIT

Fermentation chambers, which are basically just temperature and humidity controlled boxes, are used to grow koji — the fermented ingredient in miso, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and garum. A fermentation chamber is necessary for enjoying the best recipes in the Noma Guide To Fermentation.

Most people make their fermentation chambers out of common tools such as a styrofoam cooler, a thermostat, and a heating pad. I made a separate article on how to buy for and build a fermentation chamber, so take a look there if interested in this gift.

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Now for the baller gifts. How to win any fermenter’s heart!

1. Excalibur dehydrator

You can’t ferment with a dehydrator, but you can transform fermented ingredients with one. I use my Excalibur dehydrator to:

• Semi-dehydrate fermented fruits, which helps to balance their sweetness after fermentation

• Dehydrate the solids after making hot sauces or garums to create a one-of-a-kind spice

• Create fermented fruit leathers, the grown-up version of fruit roll-ups!

The Excalibur is the preferred dehydrator of the restaurant industry for its ability to last forever and its square trays (perfect for leathers).

2. Chamber sealer

I bought my chamber sealer in a total “spoil myself” moment, and it has totally transformed how I ferment. Chamber sealers are lightyears better than traditional vacuum sealers because (1) they can vacuum-seal liquids and (2) the bags they use are much less expensive than traditional ones. Vacuum sealing liquids will allow your gift recipient to open and then reseal ferments (to taste them or let out gases) or otherwise ferment things that would be near impossible to do any other way (like berry juices).

I have the large capacity AvidArmor chamber sealer (pictured below) so I can ferment in larger batches, but the smaller capacity one is much less expensive.

It’s not fermentation, but chamber sealers can also compress fruits (breaking their cell walls through boiling them at room temperature!) so you can transform watermelon to look like tuna or pickle/infuse fruits in minutes rather than hours.

3. IBUSHI GIN DONABE

I already recommended a donabe, but the ibushi gin donabe takes it to the next level. Specifically designed for smoking and infusing foods with deep, aromatic flavors, it features a unique double-lid system that ensures proper ventilation while maintaining the perfect environment for gentle smoking. I use it to smoke fish when making ramen because it releases far less smoke into the home than would other stovetop smoking solutions.

4. JOULE TURBO SOUS VIDE

If you thought sous vide cooking takes too long, it’s time to check out the Joule Turbo. It works by doing math to account for the fact that you can start with a higher temperature and finish at your target temperature.

5. Yakitori GRILL

A yakitori grill brings the authentic taste of Japanese grilled skewers to your home, perfect for recreating the charred, smoky flavors of your favorite izakaya. Traditional insulated yakitori grills can be quite expensive, but I’ve got this option and it has faired me well.

6. Anova Precision Oven

A koji-growers dream. The Anova Precision Oven is a countertop oven that works with steam to create highly precise and humidity-controlled cooking environment. Since growing koji requires both steaming rice with high accuracy then inoculating the rice in a temperature and humidity-controlled space, the Anova Precision Oven is the one-stop-shop for growing koji with perfectly replicable results.

The Anova Precision Oven can also be used to sous vide without bags and water, cook bread with perfect oven spring, and basically act as an at-home Combi Oven (the restaurant oven that is the envy of all ambitious home-cooks), so it really is an epic gift to give.