I’ll be posting about my cookbooks of the year separately, but here are a couple of food-related gift ideas, from cheap to not. Before you ask, yes, this is a transparent attempt to score with Amazon, affiliate-style.

##### Stocking Stuffers

* Exoglass spoons are like wooden spoons but made of some kind of space-age polymer that makes them dishwasher safe, hard to melt, and impervious to discoloration and odors. Plus they come in purty colors. I have a bunch of these and they’re great. About $7.

* Cuisipro measuring spoons. These are the best of all possible measuring spoons. They sit on the counter without tipping. They’re oval shaped to fit in a spice jar. And the top of the bowl is flush with the handle, so you can level them off easily. Other measuring spoon MCs should just retire.

##### Cookware

* All-Clad MC2 saute pan. This is just about the most versatile piece of equipment you can have in your kitchen. It also costs almost $200, and even though I’m giving you the Amazon link, I think you’re better off buying it in person, because this pan often has a distinct hump in the bottom which makes oil pool around the edge. To avoid this, take the pan out of the box and hold the bottom against a flat surface, like the edge of a shelf, and look for a gap. I use my saute pan for making French toast, chicken marsala, braised dishes, and pretty much everything else. It’s dishwasher- and oven-safe.

The reason it’s worth dropping a buttload of money on this pan is that when All-Clad talks about a lifetime warranty, they are serious. I also have an All-Clad 12-inch nonstick skillet, and by the time it was nine years old, the nonstick coating had gotten feathery and ineffective. This will happen to any nonstick pan, usually in less than nine years. I called All-Clad and spoke to a nice sales rep who gave me an RMA number, no questions asked. I shipped the pan back and swiftly received a brand-new pan. I expect to do this again in 2014, although presumably by then I’ll be able to just teleport the pan to them over the Internets or something.

* Emile Henry Le Potier 1-Quart Oval Baker. We have four of these (in blue) and they’re perfect for baking and serving baked pasta, apple crisp, and other one- or two-serving gratins. They’re not cheap, but I can break anything, and I haven’t even been able to chip these over the course of two moves and six years.

##### For kids

* Wooden Play Food Cuts. This is a stupid name for an awesome toy: wooden fruits and vegetables with a wooden knife and cutting board. The fruits and vegetables are held together with velcro, which you can sever with the knife, making a satisfying crunch. In fact, forget the kids–I could have hours of fun with this thing.

* Mini Kitchen. There are lots of enormous plastic toy kitchens. This one is wooden, and it’s the only one we’ve seen that will fit well in a small apartment. That’s why we’re getting it for Iris’s birthday.