14 holiday gifts for your favorite hipster foodies

Hipster foodie friends are so hard to buy gifts for. They have exceptionally high standards, like to make most things themselves, and gravitate toward items labeled with the words rare, Brooklyn, limited, organic or artisan.

Meeting all the necessary hipster criteria can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. Here are 14 gifts that are sure to get the ultimate indie stamp of approval. It’s easy to imagine a man with a mustache in overalls or a woman in a vintage dress with thick-framed glasses and a side braid using any of these gifts in a kitchen built with reclaimed wood.

1. “The Kinfolk Table”: The quarterly magazine that focuses on simple entertaining has come out with a cookbook. It’s full of recipes by photographers, writers, musicians, artists and more for dishes such as sweet potato-quinoa burgers and wild blueberry currant jam interspersed with photos of children with messy hair, bearded fathers and people standing with various greenery. It will inspire a hipster dinner party for the ages. $23.34 at Amazon.com.

2. Steel triangle dinner bell: When throwing said dinner party, inspired by “The Kinfolk Table,” you’ll need some way to announce dinner is ready. A simple “Hey, dinner is on the table,” won’t suffice, but a couple chimes of an old-fashioned dinner bell should do the trick. $50 at Bestmadeco.com.

3. Mason jar recipe cards: Most people have a box or a folder of some sort tucked away in a kitchen cabinet with recipe clippings from magazines, newspapers and maybe a couple thrown in from your Great-aunt Vicky. Looking for specific recipes can be a nightmare. These mason jar recipe cards are cute and useful and the hand-drawn lettering earns major cred. Set of 12 4- by 6-inch cards, $10 on Etsy.com.

4. Subscription to Chick Pea quarterly vegan magazine: Chances are, some of your hipster friends will be vegan, and a subscription to Chick Pea will help keep your friends up to date on all things vegan with recipes, photos, personal stories and more. And if you’re wondering whether a vegan magazine is all that hipster, its founders created the blog Hipsterfood. Oh, and it will look good on a vintage coffee table. $65 at Chickpeamagazine.com.

5. Brooklyn slate cheese board with wooden cheese knife and cheese and crackers: This is the hipster version of a food basket. It comes with a slate cheese board, a wood cheese knife, fancy wheat crackers, SQIRL’s Santa Rosa plum and flowering thyme jam and Shelburne Farms farmhouse cheddar. $70 from BrooklynSlate.com.

6. Reclaimed wood cookbook stand: Hipsters are eco-friendly. A plastic stand for a cookbook won’t do. If you’ve got the money to burn, buy a friend this iPad or cookbook stand made of 19th century European timber and salvaged zinc. Not only does it look good, owners will be all too excited to share how the wood is from the 1800s. $149 at NapaStyle.com.

7. Everyday IPA beer-making kit: Why not a kit to make a citrusy India Pale Ale in your favorite craft-beer drinker’s own converted garage/man cave? This beer-making kit comes with everything necessary to make a batch of their own special brew. $40 at BrooklynBrewShop.com.

8. Steampunk wood pepper mill: Pepper shakers are for losers. They’re just so ... well, pedestrian. But a pepper mill that looks like it belongs in a subgenre of speculative fiction? Now that’s worthy of a place on the table. $49 at Etsy.com.

9. Wood and ceramic tumblers: These sleek, sophisticated glasses with a vintage feel make the perfect glasses for, in the words of Deputy Food Editor Betty Hallock, “ironic rum and Cokes.” Set of 2, $100 at Uncommongoods.com.

10. Great mustaches mug: This mug brings together what should be a hipster male’s two great loves: His facial hair and artisan coffee. While he sips his morning brew, he can admire the mustache styles of Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, Edgar Allan Poe and Charlie Chaplin. $11.79 at PerpetualKid.com.

11. Organic cotton and hemp apron: This apron is made of a mixture of organic cotton and hemp. The brass grommets are hand-hammered and the washers are made of repurposed leather. And the entire understated garment is handcrafted in upstate New York. Enough said. $86 at Small Batch Productions on Etsy.com.

12. Personalizable leather-wrapped flask: Everyone needs a flask for discreet sipping. But think about how cool your friend will feel pulling a leather-wrapped flask out of a back pocket and showing off her initials lasered into the front. This particular flask also comes with an enlightened conversation starter already stitched in. “One drink, two drinks, half full, damn fool.” $29.95 at Redenvelope.com.

13. Fisherman salt box: It’s a rustic tin of seasoned salt that has been harvested off the coast of Brittany from a company called the French Farm. The salt is blended with a French mix of hand-cultivated herbs and spices. This box really puts that little porcelain salt shaker to shame. $24.95 at Crateandbarrel.com.

14. Craft cocktail book: Anyone, hipster or not, should know how to make a decent cocktail. “Craft Cocktail” by mixologist Brian Van Flandern is a book of recipes he made while working as head mixologist at Thomas Keller’s Per Se. There are tricks, tips and some killer photos of cocktails for the budding mixologist in all of us. $35.08 at Amazon.com.

Like to casually poke fun at hipsters because you wish you were more of one? Follow me on Twitter: @Jenn_Harris_

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