Gift basket: how to collect and present it in an original way?

Is it appropriate to give food, is it not offensive to the person to whom the gift is intended - these questions cannot be answered unequivocally. Indeed, if, for example, the parent committee of the class decides to donate the grocery basket to the teacher, then this is a bad option. But if you decide to please the treats of close relatives and friends - this can be a really good gift.

Giving money is a bad idea, but despite such a strict sentence, envelopes and postcards with banknotes remain the leader among gifts, and it is unlikely that something threatens this trend. You need to understand that the rules exist in order to break them. And if it is customary in your environment to give money, if there is some kind of agreement regarding the appropriateness of such gifts, even if there is a conditional amount, this is normal.

With products, everything is almost the same. Someone will be offended by a stick of sausage (even the most expensive), handed out on the occasion of the holiday, and someone will be happy with a delicious present. Question of relevance. When the same parents buy a package of products (caviar, red fish, sausage, chocolate, alcohol) to the teacher, this can offend him. It looks from the side as if the parents hint at low teacher salaries, and the grocery bag has some kind of condescending, humiliating character.

But if you decide, for example, on March 8, to congratulate your grandmothers with a basket of groceries, this may please them. Often, grandmothers (and other age-related relatives), when asked what to give, just wave away - they say, we don’t need anything. But products will not be an excess.

All that remains is the final touch, and it’s very important: to present a tasty gift correctly. A gastronomic basket with all its appearance should increase appetite. If you give it to a woman, she will pay attention to aesthetics first. Yes, and men love convincing outwardly gifts. The basket itself (if you have chosen such a package) must be durable, solid, convenient. Her pen can be tied with a ribbon, or you can attach a card with good wishes to the pen.

The fun begins - picking a basket. The first thing that comes to mind is sweets. Of course, you cannot do without them, but let's go through all the main points.

Proceed primarily from the tastes and preferences of the person whom they decided to congratulate. Many strive to buy a new-fashioned dessert, but it can leave indifferent a person who has already formed tastes, and he treats all the squeaks of fashion philosophically. Therefore, if you know that your loved one loves sweets with truffle filling, look for just those.

If you have a combined basket, and not a monoset (for example, only from tea or only from cheeses), it is impossible to imagine the full composition without drinks. Tea is available in the kitchen of almost every family. If you don’t have clear preferences, buy a tea platter. It is often packed in beautiful boxes.

But if it is only tea, then take expensive, leaf, by weight. Choose neutral flavors: classic black or select green. You can also attach a jar of honey to the tea basket; it literally begs for a couple.

Here a lot depends on your finances. There are budget, but very tasty options.

For example, often people are ready to abandon expensive Mediterranean cheeses in favor of the Belarusian product). Again, the cheese itself is made in the form of attractive, mouth-watering heads, sausages, flagella.

Smoked meats and jerky usually come here. Keep track of expiration date. If you are not sure about the tastes of the person to whom you make the basket, you can replace the meat portion with sausage. This is a more neutral option.

Do not take too peppery, sharp sausages - stop at something universal. It can be products reminiscent of grandmother's village sausages. It is easier to guess with sausage than with meat.

If there are vegetables from your garden in your food basket, that’s fine. A close person will definitely appreciate such a contribution. But if there is no such opportunity, carefully work in the vegetable department.

You also need to try with fruits - ripe apples, showing off with glossy barrels, traditional oranges, tangerines (in winter) are appropriate. If you want something more exotic, take a broom and mango, they rarely disappoint those who have not tried them before. Grapes look great in a gift basket. Do not forget to grab a kiwi: in terms of the amount of valuable vitamin C, it is even ahead of lemon. By the way, the lemon in the fruit basket is also not at all superfluous.

The berry part is especially good in the season when the berries are local, fresh, beautiful. But if winter is bad outside with berries, you don’t need to take expensive strawberries (perhaps not quite tasty). It is better to experiment with dried fruits: they are much more useful in winter. Yes, and they look nice if you pack them in small plastic bags and tie them with a ribbon. To here - a couple of small packages with nuts. But peanuts should not be taken, despite the cheapness: there is less benefit in it than in other nuts, in addition, it is a very allergenic product.

In this part of the basket there is a place for something that does not always clearly fall under one or another category. For example, red caviar - what is a grocery greeting set without it? Or canned tuna - a popular base for salads also deserves a place in the holiday basket.

Make "edible" baskets to your taste. Perhaps it’s really better for grandmother or mother to take the team, where there is little bit of everything. But if, for example, you are carrying someone a gift from a trip (to colleagues, for example), then you can bring a small monokorzin: cheese, tea, a basket of coffee.

Most often, grocery baskets are played thematically. For example, chocolate is made out with satin ribbons to match the chocolate, and coffee is complemented by goodies for coffee - cookies, sweets, jam. If you make an Italian-style basket (pasta, sauces, olive oil), you can “toss” a small art album with beautiful reproductions of the Venetians into it. Or it would be appropriate in such a basket the biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Or maybe Sophia Loren or Bernardo Bertolucci.

A fish basket with mouth-watering seafood can be fraught with some kind of surprise. For example, a friendly comic fishing invitation - a certificate is not an infinite number of fishing trips with a friend.

Design depends on your imagination, as well as on the closeness of relations with those to whom you present a gift. Also important is the holiday, for which such "offerings" are made. If you decided to present a grocery basket for the New Year, then there are a lot of options - from flirty-looking spruce branches sprinkled with artificial snow, to small souvenirs, Christmas toys, as if they accidentally find themselves in the midst of grocery splendor.

I want to supplement the basket, which is presented on March 8, with branches of mimosa. And on your birthday, you can tie a bunch of colorful balloons to the handle of the basket. Do not forget to sign the card. By the way, in a seafood basket, you can put a beautiful bottle with a cork, inside which there will be a small note. These are words of congratulations that can be stylized as a message of a cheerful pirate.

I would like not only to hand a gift from hand to hand, but to do it creatively. If the basket is decorated beautifully, then extra words are not required. But if you feel that something needs to be said, be concise and eloquent.

Examples of accompanying speech:

• On such a festive day, I would like to wish you a subtle, excellent taste for life! Appreciate what we call the little things in life - rejoice in the aroma of coffee, fresh pastries on Saturday morning, a fun joke and an exquisite compliment. And in order to train the “muscles of taste", we give you this "edible" basket!
• How to please a gourmet? Probably good products from which he can create a culinary masterpiece. Without further ado, I want to give you this basket - try, enjoy, compose new recipes and invite us to visit!
• We know firsthand about your culinary talents. And in order for you to perfect your style, we decided to help you a little bit: please accept this “tasty” basket. Let her help you reach a new level of culinary excellence.
• Only a person who does not know what kind of work is behind him and who does not know what can inspire a person on time and properly served lunch does not appreciate a tasty lunch. Our gift is just a small compliment to your culinary talents, which we would like to continue to appreciate!

Figuratively speaking, one can “pepper the main course” with florid compliments, and the gift will be accepted with pleasure. If everything is decorated aesthetically, if the products are not taken according to the “cheapest” principle, if you really wanted to please your loved one and please him, the grocery basket will definitely not be a passing gift.

For how to make a gift basket, see the following video: