Gifts They'll Love
Here are some hip things we found for the foodies and cooking enthusiasts in your life, whether you’re shopping for the winter holidays or any gift-giving event throughout the year. Or buy them for yourself for no reason at all.
DESIGNED WITH HUMOR
Illustrator and artist Mina Wilcox grew up in Japan, where she would help her grandfather who was a wood block print artist. Now living in Camarillo with her family, she channeled her love of art two years ago into Art Mina. At the homebased business, she decorates cotton flour-sack kitchen towels, canvas tote bags and aprons with hand-silk-screened designs using water-based nontoxic inks.
With cheerful and humorous drawings, the bags and towels are fun to use. They also help you go green by eliminating single-use bags and paper towels. And the aprons are a cute way to save clothes from messy splatters.
Wilcox likes to watch people chuckle when they see her work, she says. “They like animals, plants, nature, yoga, ‘eco’ and art. … They ask me, ‘Do you have an image of a bee? dog? rooster? turtle? beet? Ojai?’ So I have to make more and more pictures.”
Available at the Ojai and Camarillo Certified Farmers’ Markets, Ambrosia by Caffrodite in Ventura and at ArtMina.com.
COPPER CONNECTION
Chefs have long appreciated copper for its ability to diffuse heat, making it ideal for even cooking. But you don’t have to buy expensive copper pans. Ventura-based aerospace engineer and home cook Peter Mohler created BellaCopper Heat Diffusers in 2002 to use on almost any stovetop with any pan.
In addition to providing even heat and eliminating hot spots, the solid copper plates distribute heat beyond the burner for larger pans, and stabilize and protect smaller pans. They can also be used in the oven to help equalize the heat when baking.
Available in different sizes, the plates are manufactured in the U.S. from ⅛-inch-thick 99.9% pure copper and finished in Ventura. You can also use them to defrost foods more quickly (and more safely) than leaving them on the counter, as the copper transfers its internal heat to the frozen food, says Mohler.
“I will say, for such a simple thing it really does work well,” he says. Indeed.
Available at BellaCopper.com.
IN THE BAG
It’s never been cool to waste food and, thankfully, Jan Rem is making it easier to protect produce from spoiling. Rem, who grew up in Ojai, launched Ambrosia Produce Storage Bag, a line of zippered flax linen bags, three years ago. (Her husband, Norman, helps with the business and provides moral support, she says.)
Protecting her large garden harvest without using plastic bags was the catalyst for creating the bags, which are made in California and come in different sizes. “I thought about how my grandmother stored her veggies in linen tea towels before plastic bags,” she says. The bags’ flax linen is ideal, Rem says, because it’s breathable, slows the production of ethylene gas and is naturally anti-bacterial and anti-fungal.
You can choose from hydrating bags for vegetables, herbs and delicate greens so they stay fresh for up to three weeks in the refrigerator’s produce drawer, or dehydrating ones for mushrooms and fruits so they don’t get slimy. Berries last one to two weeks, she says.
“I love solving problems and being a positive influence for our environment,” Rem says.
Available in Ojai at the Ojai Certified Farmers’ Market and Rainbow Bridge Village Marketplace, and at AmbrosiaBag.com.
