gifts

Improvised Life’s Not Shopping Holiday Gift Guide

Years ago, having burned out from years of overdrive in holiday giving, I devised a strategy for pleasurable, stress-free giving that avoids combing through “holiday gift guides” for cool things nobody needs.

The Value of Objects I Can’t Afford

One of the most curious, charming and compelling blogs I’ve come across lately is Objects I Can’t Afford. The title page says “Welcome to my on-going wish list of things that are juuust out of my budget”…It’s an amazingly clarifying head trip.

Unleash Your Inner Beast (Theo Jansen, Ted Hughes, Luo Zhihai)

For almost thirty years, Theo Jansen has been nurturing the evolution of Strandbeests, kinetic “beasts” that walk majestically on their own. Poet Ted Hughes put his finger on what it is we are doing when we, like Jansen, put new “forms of life” into the world.

Catalogue of Possibilities and Very Cool Tools

We’ve found that reading catalogues not only relaxing, but makes our brains sparkle with unexpected ways to use materials. Our favorite catalogue of all is Cool Tools, a catalogue of possibilities that EXPANDS our view mightily.

Last-Minute, Inexpensive, Artisan-Made Gift (They Won’t Throw Out)

actress Hari Neff said hers was a pineapple a schoolmate gave her many years ago. There’s nothing worse than a bad gift you don’t know what to do with that and you just throw out. You can’t throw out a pineapple. We heartily recommend this inexpensive gift for friends and family (or even yourself), that is way better than Neff’s luscious pineapple…

Gift: Spring Bulbs for Effortless Blooms + Magic

I rely on spring bulbs for their ability to bring a breath of spring into our wintery lives slowly, miraculously, over several weeks.

Gift: The Essential Rumi’s Poetry and Wisdom

The Essential Rumi is a beauty of a book, one that you can open anywhere, even mid-poem, and find a perfect bit of illumination. It makes a fine gift. Here’s a taste with a new way to read poetry.

Improvised Life’s Thoughtful Un-Gift Guide

Here’s our list of things we think are worth giving for the way they expand minds/hearts/creativity, or are just downright useful…

Tasting Spoons: Essential Kitchen Tool and Welcome Gift

A tasting spoon is an essential kitchen tool, allowing you to add flavor experiments directly to the “taste” to see if you like them. Over the years I’ve collected —and given — quite a few tasting spoons. They make great, unexpected gifts. Here’s a roundup:

Gifts for Eaters and Cooks via Sally and The Splendid Table

Wondering what to give cooks and eaters on your list over the holidays? Check out my interview with Melissa Clark on the great Splendid Table, airing around the country this week. To read more about the swell time-tested finds — both bought and made yourself —, follow these links.

Survivalist’s Essential Tool (and Gift): Trees

In this astonishing simulation, Nasa tracks the flow of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide across the planet over the course of a year and shows just how much trees clean the air. It increased our awareness of how essential trees are, beyond their beauty, shade and energy. And what we can easily do to increase earth’s tree population.

Favorite Kitchen Tool: French-Style Universal Pot Lid

On my first trip to France, I bought a classic French pot lid in a flea market. Ten inches in diameter, it is a tin-lined copper disk with a cast iron handle. Little did I know that it would become one of my most-used kitchen tools. Or that the copper lids would become really expensive. On the hunt to find an alternative, I finally found a new iteration that is affordable and incredibly useful.

$4 Adventures in Artisan Perfumes

We spent several illuminating hours exploring the website of Twisted Lily, a fragrance boutique in Brooklyn that features artisanal perfumes. Buying $4 sample sizes of several of their 648 offerings proved an exciting, affordable way to learn about the mysterious, sensual world of fragrances.

Ancient Trees: Portraits in Time, Change, Survival

“Ancient Trees: Portraits in Time” is one of the most beautiful and instantly transformative books we’ve seen in a long time. Photographer Beth Moon spent fourteen years traveling the world photographing ancient trees She describes her images as “Portraits of Change. Portraits of Survival. Portraits of Time” and interleaves them with the occasional perfect poem. It is a book we will leave open, to keep in our field of vision as we go about our day.

Shiny Mud Dumplings, Pies + Other Favorite Spring Recipes

(Video link here.) Friday is the day we usually publish a recipe, hoping that it will prove a delicious weekend activity for our readers. While we recommend your checking out the menu and recipe links for the birthday dinner we’ll be cooking for a friend (at bottom), we can think of no better Spring activity than making…

Need a Last Minute Gift? Give Improvised Life

Casting about for an instant gift to give? Give your brilliant someone a subscription to Improvised Life, a month or year of inventive, mind-shifting tools and ideas for creative possibility-thinking, from home design and cooking to productivity and self-expression: our whole archive’s worth. Gifting is easy…

A Cook’s Favorite Gifts for Cooks of all Stripes

Every so often, a friend calls to ask me what cooking equipment to recommend. LONG story! You’ll find an extensive list of equipment for a basic kitchen in A New Way to Cook, along with 700+ pages of essential techniques and recipes. For now, here are my tried-and-true favorites, from high to low and back.

The Zeitgeist in Pom Poms

The other day, we came across some spectacular earrings: fur pom poms dangling from thin gold wires. WANT, we thought. And then, MAKE, which starts us researching materials and processes. We discovered that pom poms, both fur and fake, can be easily bought and hold huge possibilities for gifts. And then we found we’d unknowingly tapped into the zeitgeist.

Rules of ReGifting + Gifts They Won’t Want to ReGift

(Video link here.) So, er, yes, well, er, we DO have a regifting drawer as well as a gift drawer of stuff we’ve bought because we think it’s universally great. Truth be told, the stuff in the regifting drawer tends to languish, we suspect because it can take a while before we find someone for whom…

What’s The Best Gift You’ve Ever Received?

In this season of frenzied holiday shopping, Quartz asked 40 leaders in art, business, fashion, science, and social justice the question: What’s the best gift you’ve ever received? Their surprising answers cast a lens on just what a great gift really is, along with some really lovely ideas….

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