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A Chance to Give Back to our Brave Soldiers this Veterans Day

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:39:00 -1000

In honor of Veterans Day, GourmetGiftBaskets.com would like to offer our valued customers a chance to give something special back to our troops. For every purchase made on 11/11/11 of $100 or more, GourmetGiftBaskets.com is going to donate one of our very special care packages to an injured soldier at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in time for the holiday season!

We are also offering as a special gift to all of our customers, a coupon code, VET11, that is good for an 11% discount on any and all purchases made on November 11^th!

In the spirit of giving this Holiday season, GourmetGiftBaskets.com would also like to offer all bloggers out there the chance to have two of our wonderful care packages delivered on your blog's behalf to injured soldiers who will spending this Christmas at Walter Reed Hospital. You can even include a custom greeting to the soldiers on the card, if that's something you feel you'd like to do, or have us personalize it with the name of your blog for you.

All we ask of you in return is a simple review of our lovely Christmas gift baskets. We ask that you write a short post about the value and variety of our products, and how they could make a great gift. There really is something for everyone! We know you'll have no trouble discussing our wide selection of gifts for everyone on your readers lists.

We also encourage you to invite your readers to review the site on their own blogs, and for every single review, an additional two care packages will be donated on their blog's behalf!

We would like these reviews to be posted any time between November 21^st and December 9^th in hopes that your readers have the chance to make the most of them while purchasing gifts this holiday season. Once any reviews have been posted, simply send us a list of all the blog post URL's, as well as the name of the Blogs. Be sure to do this before December 14^thto ensure the care packages will reach the hospitalized vets in time for Christmas.

So please, help us here at GourmetGiftBaskets.com give something back this holiday season to the the brave men and women who have given so much already, and who won't be able to spend their Christmas at home. Support our Vets!

* Please send the Blog Posts to brian@gourmetgiftbaskets.com by December 14th

Smell and Memory

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:01:00 -1000

Yesterday I was brought back to a memory of being ten years old and I had just moved from a concrete urban environment that smelled like bus exhaust to a verdant suburb that smelled like fresh, cut grass. On Saturday mornings, all the men were out mowing their new suburban lawns. Now I closed my eyes and I was ten years old again and playing with my friends in the yard.

It is the olfactory sense which connects so quickly to memory. It is the sense of smell that transports us back to a time and place more than the senses of sight or sound ever do. We’ve all had the experience. How the piney smell of a wooden box instantly recalls a bunk at summer camp. How the smell of wet wool or jarred white paste evokes elementary school classrooms.

Artists and writers have long known that smells can spontaneously evoke powerful memories. But scientists also reveal the basis of this connection by explaining that the initial association of a smell with an experience somehow leaves a unique and lasting impression in the brain.

Scientists tested this idea in a “smell laboratory” where subjects viewed images while presented simultaneously with either a pleasant or an unpleasant odor generated in a machine called an Olfactometer. Next, the subjects were put in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner to measure their brain activity as they reviewed the images they’d seen and attempted to remember which odor was associated with each. The participants viewed the objects again and were asked to recall the odors. The smells and images were repeated over time, and eventually revealed connections in the hippocampus, a brain structure involved in memory, and in the Amygdala, a brain structure involved in emotion. When scientists did the experiment using sounds rather than smells, they found that these connections were not nearly as significant.

But to my mind, it is the olfactory connection to people that is often the most profound and pleasurable. My mother smelled like Chanel #5, although the tips of her fingers sometimes smelled like onions. My father smelled like cigarettes and newsprint. My newborn daughter’s sweaty head when she woke from a nap smelled like sweet, ripe cantaloupe. My first boyfriend smelled like menthol and Clearacil.

A single, lingering deep breath … and there it is, another way of keeping the past alive and those you love with you always.

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Why A Child Will Love Our Camp Care Packages

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:47:00 -1000

Most children experience at least a touch of homesickness when they are away from their families for a week or two. That sadness is quickly forgotten when they receive camp care packages in the mail during their stay at camp. All kids are not the same, so we have collected items for children of various personalities and have an assortment of 10 different camp care packages from which to choose.

The Activities, Games and Puzzles package includes items like washable markers, scribble pad, bendable pencil with sharpener, sticker book, Sudoku puzzle, activity book, wooden peg games, yo-yo, air missiles and playing cards. This package will give kids something to do during lulls in camp activities.

Campers who do not like to spend lots of time packing will appreciate receiving our Camp Essentials package with hand sanitizer, toothpaste, toothbrush, pocket tissues, flashlight and batteries. The package also contains fun things like a yo-yo, Sudoku puzzles, dry erase corkboard, playing cards, bendable pencil, sharpener and journal. The deluxe Camp Essentials package contains even more necessities for happy camping.

Our Summer Fun package includes items like squirt guns and swimming goggles for fun at the pool, and a Frisbee, glider airplane and balloon launcher will add to outdoor fun. The package also contains bubbles, temporary tattoos, a yo-yo and the popular Pet Shaped Rubber Band Bracelets.

Other packages include Arts & Crafts, Glow in the Dark and Kids Sports with appropriate items in each package.

Even kids who do not get homesick love to receive camp care packages. They feel loved and special when they get packages chosen with their own likes and interests in mind. Additionally, the camp care packages can help children who have trouble making new friends by giving them a chance to share their toys and games with others.

Children do not have to leave home to enjoy camp care packages. When the summer gets long and boring, a camp care package arriving in the mail may be just the thing to surprise them and lift their spirits.

Check out our amazing selection of Camp Care Packages!

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Work at Home Tips

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:01:00 -1000

I work at home in a second floor apartment in a “quiet” tree-lined suburban community where apartments are the exception. My home office looks out on private homes on two sides.

Currently, I am writing to a cacophonous symphony that no amount of concentration can tune out or neutralize. There is the jackhammer which has been assaulting my eardrums and equanimity for weeks now as a crew breaks up the road every few feet to lay down some kind of piping.

Simultaneously, I am trying to tune out the lawn mower and the carpet-cleaning machine Spotless (but not noiseless) is using on my carpets. In an hour I will have to get onto a conference call to make a presentation, windows down, air on, in an effort to drown out the ceaseless racket of the jackhammer.

“Do you love working at home?” I am often asked and most of time the answer is a resounding yes, despite any of the downsides. It is a luxury to stay in PJs as long as I want (except when the exterminator or UPS or a neighbor knocks on the door at 4pm and I am still in a robe, in which case luxury downgrades immediately to humiliation.

It is a gift not to have to be somewhere every morning at the same time – hair, makeup and mood in place – and to be able to sleep in when a migraine swallows up the morning or when I feel like it. It is spectacular to make my own hours so I can yield to the lure of the golf course on gorgeous days or to the need for a hug from my grandchildren.

“I would never have the discipline,” friends tell me, and I assure them I don’t have it either. While the temptation to turn on the television is one that never visits me except for something out of the ordinary like Will and Kate’s wedding or the U.S. Open (golf or tennis) or the Olympics, I would claim the Gold in procrastination if it were an Olympic sport.

Had I a dollar for each day I broke the vow to go to sleep at a decent hour so I could wake up early, work efficiently, and take the afternoon off (over my decade working at home) I would have a lot of money. And once I am up, the urge to walk away from the computer is so great that I have been known to clean out closets, “junk” drawers or bureaus, any of those repellent activities more appealing that the project my client awaits.

The presence of the refrigerator, fewer than 10 paces from my desk, is a constant a distraction as are the telephone, a good novel, my knitting, the New York Times crossword puzzles. Not to mention that the sense of day and night, weekday and weekend seem to blend into one another so there is little distinction between being at work and being off duty. Every day as I go from bed to computer, index finger extended to turn it on before I’ve even brushed my teeth, I know something is wrong with that picture.

There is no job, however, at any salary, that would tempt me to give up the freedom of an at-home office. The tips below for “staying productive and sane while working at home” are among 30 submitted by at-home workers to a site called www.zenhabits.net. I could have written most of them, and do adhere to some of them, but based on how many I do not do, I am clearly not going to reach inner peace.

Have a room/space dedicated for work (check).
Close the door.
Keep your desk and general work area tidy (for me, this really does increase focus, although cleaning it up is just another form or procrastination!)
Turn off the telephone when you need to work without distraction (ha)
Don’t stop working if it is a hard day. (ha ha)
Give yourself breaks (on some days it’s more like squeeze some work in between your breaks)
Know when to stop (a very good counterpoint to the preceding bullet
Have a pint of water by your desk all the time (agreed)
Set boundaries for those around you.
Have a good lunch (how “good” is container of hummus and potato chips?)
Be grateful you are working from home and not from a cubicle!

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An Easy Way to Do Good in Your Neighborhood

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:41:00 -1000

Years ago, when I lived on a block with very new mothers, some of us decided to form a neighborhood bridge group. We were all terrible card players, but that really wasn’t the point. Meeting once a month was a way to get together, to talk about families, schools, neighborhood stuff. Some of us were friends outside of the bridge group, but not all of us were.

When we started, we talked about playing for money – small sums – a few dollars – just to spice up the game. But our score-keeping was haphazard; and, truth be told, we talked a lot more than we played cards. I got the idea of everyone just kicking in a couple of dollars when we met. Then we could give the money to charity. Somehow I became the official treasurer. I still keep the money in the same black make-up case that was in my purse the first night I collected money – has it been twenty years ago?

Eventually, we moved up from putting in three dollars to five. There are eight women who attend bridge club; so every month that’s forty dollars – give or take for who forgets, who has a ten dollar bill and doesn’t want change. Each month I write down whose house we played at that month and how much is in the kitty. The women decided when we first started that the donations would remain local and even personal (someone who knew someone who needed help) -- that is, not a traditional charity. Every few months, I give a treasurer’s report. About twice a year we decide in a fairly random way, who to give the money to.

Here’s a sample of what my neighborhood bridge group has contributed to over the years:

$100 to the local homeless shelter
$110 to a family flooded out of their apartment
$200 to a family who were victims of a violent crime
$110 for a refugee family
$135 to the local food pantry
$105 to a single mom studying for her GED
$140 to the local battered women’s shelter

Now we’ve been meeting for decades. Some us have moved out of the neighborhood and must drive across town for bridge. A few have moved out of state, and we’ve incorporated new members. Our bridge playing skills have not improved much.

All across this country there are people who contribute both time and money to needy causes. There are also groups of women who meet for fun: in book groups, bridge and canasta groups, gardening clubs. Collecting a small fee at the beginning of every meeting is an easy way to do good.

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Caps in the Air!

Mon, 23 May 2011 10:16:00 -1000

When I graduated from college, my parents gave me a string of pearls. From time to time, but not very often, I go into pearl mode and wear them with everything. Generally, though, they sit in my jewelry box. Years ago I had them restrung, and the jeweler did a miserable job. When I told him they don’t lie flat, that they seem to buckle because of how tight he made them, he told me that my body heat would make the knots relax. I must be stone cold. Those pearls do, however, mean a lot to me.

These days, graduation is a gift-giving ritual from pre-school on up. It’s hard to keep track of who is graduating from where because schools and grades seem to be divided according to a districts’ momentary demographics. My granddaughter, therefore, will be “graduating” this June at the end of third grade when she will advance to middle school (junior high schools in both name and grade seem to be extinct.) So it’s her third graduation – pre-school, kindergarten, and now third grade – at the ripe old age of nine. No problem thinking of something she’ll love. Nine-year-old girls are easy to buy for?

But what do you give the college grad today? For that very large population of parents, most of us, who can’t hand over the keys to a new car or a check to spend the summer in Europe (today’s grads, unlike those of bygone years, wouldn’t be able to make it through Europe on $5 a day as those of my generation did, Arthur Frommer’s how-to-do-it bible in hand.

Some ideas:

Something-of-the-Month Club. Make up your own club to which only your own graduate (child, niece, nephew) has a membership. Anything from home-baked cookies of the month to other clubs of your own devising: movie tickets of the month, T-shirt of the month (great when your grad has a real interest in something specific), wine of the month, make-up of the month, manicure of the month, jelly beans of the month, personalize m&ms of the month. You name it.

Make a donation. There are lots of causes which appeal to young people, causes that let them really see what money can do. A donation in a graduate’s honor can trigger a healthy habit that can be handed down from generation to generation. Heifer International provides training and animals to families around the world to help make them self-reliant, but there are literally thousands of causes, one of which might hold special appeal to the graduate you want to honor.

iTunes gift cards. Actually, anything with an “I” in front of it will do. You’d think Apple stores are giving away iPads based on the number of people you can see pouring out of the stores, new devices in hand. But whether you want to spend ten bucks or dozens of tens, it would be hard to find a graduate who tires of getting new downloads for their iThis or iThat.

Amazon Kindle. Find anyone who owns a Kindle and doesn’t love it. End of story. While there are lots of worthy competitors, to my eyes, this one remains the best. You can also add a couple of books you’ve loved or accessorize with a carrying case into which you add am amazon.com gift card.

Cash or an Amex gift card which can be used anywhere. Need I say more? Might soon disappear, but will not disappoint!

Quilt throw. It’s a little late for this one, but if you’re really handy. . . . Get photo transfer fabric (any quilting store) and transfer photos of your grad’s life (or college life) to these fabric squares. Choose a background fabric. Stitch the squares together, and you have usable photo “album”

Go have fun bag. If your graduate, like so many, has been toting gear and clothing to and from college in tired duffles or, as my daughters did, giant leaf bags, a nice lightweight weekend getaway bag is a good gift. Family members who want to add to the send-off can put their own gifts into the bag.

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In Praise of Sidewalks

Fri, 06 May 2011 09:22:00 -1000

When my husband and I moved into a new house last year, the neighbors were welcoming. Our house is a traditional brick ranch on a winding street with big trees and lovely landscaping. Now the star magnolia tree in my front yard is blooming and the quaking aspen trees are just beginning to bud.

I was taking a walk the other day when I saw a neighbor was busy mulching around his tulips and daffodils. “I love this street,” I told him. A car came around the bend and I stepped gingerly onto the grass. “But the only thing I miss are sidewalks.”

I didn’t expect his heated response. “If we added sidewalks here, I’d move!”

Turns out, there was a neighborhood history that I was ignorant of. A few years back there were sidewalk wars on this very street. Those who wanted sidewalks and petitioned the city for them and those who were decidedly anti-sidewalk and threatened to sue or leave or who knows what if sidewalks were to be mandated.

Also, turns out, there have been sidewalk spats everywhere in this country, from Red Wing Minnesota to Naples, Florida. Who knew?

The anti-sidewalk contingency cites how the traditional character of more rural neighborhoods is destroyed by concrete. Some landscaping would be ruined. But the most significant reason that home-owners are against putting in sidewalks in a traditionally “sidewalk free” zone, is that they don’t want to pay for it. (Homeowners also don’t want to shovel snow. Admittedly, I found this a perk in January).

Still, as a person who grew up in cities and traditional suburbia -- all with sidewalks in front of the house – I am decidedly in the pro-sidewalk camp.

I am pro-sidewalk because:

sidewalks provide safe places to wheel baby strollers, for kids to play and ride bikes.
sidewalks encourage neighbors to visit each other without having to go through yards or step on gardens or grass
sidewalks make for safer walks to schools, bus stops and shopping; especially during bad weather.
sidewalks help protect property from damage due to erosion and parking

There’s even evidence from a study at Washington State that the presence of sidewalks helps in a small way to alleviate climate change: The results provide early evidence in the potential effectiveness of sidewalks to reduce CO2 and VMT (vehicle miles traveled); sidewalks can make a difference along with other factors to significantly reduce CO2 emissions.

Even with the cost-benefit analysis, I think the pro-sidewalk side wins. But the solution may be to install the sidewalks before anyone moves in!

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Greatest Mothers Day Gift?

Thu, 05 May 2011 06:47:00 -1000

The first Mothers Day Gift I can remember giving my Mom was a narrow navy blue belt with a long narrow gold buckle. I was a seven-year-old Bronx kid, and such as times were, I was allowed to walk down to the end of the block past the four buildings (955, 923, 911 and 901 Walton Avenue) that sprawled between my building and Murray and Murray’s candy store. Next to it was a drug store owned by a man named Bernie, where I thought eating a cream cheese and lettuce sandwich along with an egg cream at the counter made me as close to a grown-up as a kid could get.

That’s as far as I was allowed to go unaccompanied, but I had been beyond the border many times for hand-packed ice-cream at Addie Valens. That is how I knew that between the drug store and Addie Valens was a small women’s store – I don’t think the work boutique was even in the vernacular yet. It was to that store that I violated boundaries to find a gift for my mom with money squirreled away from my candy and Spalding budget! I remember still the white tissue paper in which it was wrapped and how proud I was to give it my mother.

The first Mothers Day gift I remember getting from my own kids, other than their wonderful glittery, lacy, home-made cards, was very, very special. I awoke on Mothers Day, immediately aware that our apartment was too quiet. A single mom who worked hard not to be over-protective, I called out their names and got no response. As the adrenaline started coursing through my veins, I saw the note on the pillow next to mine.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” it said, though I am sure the original had much more creative spelling. “We know you work so hard and that you love the newspaper on Sunday, so we went to get it for you.” Could a mother ask for more? Want more? I don’t think so. Their gesture embodied everything good about a commercial Hallmark-y holiday, real appreciation and love, even at risk of getting in trouble, from the two people who meant more to me than any others in the world.

For many the day has become one of obligation. I have heard people, including people I love, say, without anything close to enthusiasm, “I have to pick up my mother and then take her home,” or “I cannot believe I’m losing a great golf day.” (Well, I can empathize with that one.) And there have been years when because of temporary rifts I have “celebrated” the day twice, one day with one daughter and then another day with the other, which does not do good things for a mother’s heart.

In an ideal world, kids of all ages would feel the joy young children feel when they make their moms happy. I am very richly rewarded in this department. So as Mothers Day approaches, go for the flowers and the dinner if you want. Buy something you know will have meaning for your mom. Send her something spectacular from our website. But remember what you already know if you are a mom. Nothing is more valuable than a from-the-heart note whether it is placed on a pillow, sent through the mail, of spoken over Skype. And when an in-the-flesh giant hug is possible, go for it. Nothing else is needed. Anything else is icing on an already sweet cake of a day.

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May Day Baskets

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:49:00 -1000

May 1^st is a holiday that children celebrate here in the Midwest with the sweetest custom: they make home-made baskets, fill them with flowers and candy and deliver the baskets to neighbors. The gift is anonymous. It’s also the only time a child has parental permission to ring a doorbell and then run like the wind.

You can create a May basket out of empty soup cans or rolled construction paper. On my block, most of us simply used plastic or paper cups. We punctured holes in the sides to thread through simple handles of pipe-cleaner, ribbon or string.

What candy to put in your May basket? I used jelly beans and M&M’s. A lollipop. Gum drops. A single stick of Juicy Fruit gum. You only have a small container, so there should be just a few pieces of candy. Think of it as Halloween lite.

What flowers to put in your May basket? Just see what’s blooming around the neighborhood. The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la! We had Hepatica, Bloodroot, Anemones, Violets, Solomon’s Seal. There are all Midwestern wildflowers. Lily-of-the-Valley adds a delicious scent. You needn’t know the names of the flowers, just pick pretty posies. Feeling generous, you can cut a tulip or two from your own yard. A twig of any greening branch. Creeping Charlie exasperates those who want a perfect lawn, but the little purple flowers look pretty and the trailing weed drapes gracefully out of a child’s May basket. Any weeds are good. Throw in some grass, too.

Children love May day because part of the old-fashioned tradition is the special thrill of getting “caught.” The recipient is not supposed to know who gave this special present. My daughter used to be giddy with excitement at the adventure of it all. As she ran away, she would look over her shoulder as a neighbor would discover the basket and feign enthusiasm at a plastic cup of wilted dandelions.

I loved May day because it was a fun way to celebrate spring and establish a sense of community. The added plus was that for not-so-crafty moms like me, creating a May basket was such an easy (and inexpensive) activity. The May day basket appears make-do and amateurish. It’s supposed to. The gift itself is a spontaneous and child-like welcome.

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The Whistler

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:18:00 -1000

I have walked out of plays, clapped when the curtain came down, jumped to my feet and clapped until my hands hurt. I have been in big Broadway venues, tiny hole-in-the-wall theatres, off-Broadway theatres, high school auditoriums and outdoor venues.

I have seen rock operas and serious drama, musicals and avant-garde what-is-going-on-here drama. Comedies, tragedies, one-woman and one-man shows, casts of a hundred, I’ve seen them all. I’ve watched stars of the theatre and television and recording stars trying and failing to be theatre stars. I’ve watched debuts and final performances and different Billy Elliot’s. I am a stranger neither to Greek theatre nor opera.

I have sat next to people, including my friends, whose phones have rung despite the manager’s request that all electronic devices be turned off. A man I took to the ballet whipped out a bottle of Poland Springs water during a quiet pas de deux, and sucked out the water until the bottle made cracking noises that could be heard 10 rows away.

I have sat next to or in front of Major League coughers, loud whisperers, non-stop talkers, people with post-nasal drips that led them to chhh, chchh, chhh throughout a performance. I have sat next to hecklers, arm-rest usurpers and wearers of heavy scents of the perfume or body-odor genre. Smokers and drinkers have shared their habits with me via their respective and distinctive smells.

My seat neighbors have been people from down the block, across the country or faraway continents. We have talked before curtain and during intermission and developed mini friendships of the moment that made the theatre-going experience more fun. But it wasn’t until last week at a performance of “Good People,” starring Frances McDormand and Estelle Parsons, that I sat next to a female shrill whistler who couldn’t control the urge, at curtain, to do one of those – no, many of those – two-finger-in-the-mouth whistles that the human ear cannot tolerate.

At first whistle, let loose facing not the stage, but my left ear, I felt deafened. At second whistle, I felt irked but thought, OK, how long can this applause go on? At third whistle, I wanted to punch her in the face but instead turned and very nicely said, “Could you please stop whistling because it is deafening?”

Before the question was out of my mouth, it was clear that I was not dealing with normal. Not even vaguely normal. This virago got into my face – close enough for me to bite off her lips if I wanted – and started screaming. At full volume. Loud enough to cut through the applause. “How dare you?....Don’t you tell me what to do . . . . She was scary. I shut up, and everyone around us was shaking their heads in disbelief. It was as if the Loch Ness Monster materialized in the blink of an eye and was, surely, going to eat me up.

Obviously, thankfully, this kind of encounter is the exception, not the rule, but here are a few rules that can make a big difference for those around you in the theatre – and for you as well. So simple, so seemingly obvious, so often forgotten:

Get there on time. If you are in an urban area, there will be traffic. There is always traffic. Count on it. If you are on time, an entire row of people will not have to stand and disrupt other people’s views while you climb over knees and purses and feet
Open any candy, gum, cookies in wrappers, anything that might crinkle during opening
Turn off your phone and check that it is off. Not on vibrate which is only one step better than full ring. Unless you are a physician responding to a hospital call, there is no excuse. Babysitters? What did they do before cell technology?
Keep your coat and bag and scarf in your territory
Leave the perfume in the bottle
If you are sick, surprise a good friend with a great gift – your ticket
If you are a woman on line for the restroom, where there are never enough stalls for the number of women who need them, don’t spend your stall time putting on lipstick
No matter how much you’ve enjoyed the play, stifle the kind of whistle that a dog owner may use to call a dog back in a big open field
Go buy more tickets. With arts funding taking such a big hit, we all need to support the arts

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