Lucy Baker - Edible DIY: Simple, Giftable Recipes to Savor and Share

First and foremost, thank you to my wonderful agent, Sharon Bowers, for her continued encouragement, support, and enthusiasm. A big thanks to Geoffrey Stone, my brilliant (and patient!) editor, and everyone else at Running Press: Seta Bedrossian Zink, Craig Herman, Corinda Cook, Steve Legato, Deborah Wahl, and Mariellen Melker.

As always, a huge thank-you to the entire team at Serious Eats, especially Erin Zimmer and Maggie Hoffman, for editing my weekly columns, and for agreeing with me that the best kind of gifts are those you can eat.

Thank you to my family: John and Elizabeth Baker, Jeffrey Baker, Susan and Larry Brandes, Jennifer, Chris, Beverly, and Shane Hepler. Lastly, thank you to my amazing husband, Alex, for all his love and support, and for cheerfully eating the good, the bad, and the burned.

Four months after my now husband, Alex, and I started dating we took a trip to Portland, Oregon. On our last day we ate our way through the citys famed farmers market, sampling crusty artisanal breads, gooey cheeses, homemade jams, and some of the juiciest blackberries I have ever tasted. Then we went to the Oregon Brewers Festival, where we sipped dozens of incredibly malty and hoppy microbrewed beers.

At the end of the day we collapsed, thoroughly stuffed, into our little rental car and drove to the airport. Alex was staying on the West Coast for another month, but I had to get back to New York for graduate school.

In the parking lot we hugged and kissed, and for the first time said, I love you. Then I boarded the plane and flew home alone.

When you are newly in love, four weeks without your boyfriend can seem like an eternity. I wanted to call and e-mail Alex every day, but I also wanted to seem alluring and mysterious. I didnt want him to think I was desperate or clingy, and I wanted him to miss me, too. How could I show him how I felt about him without texting him every ten minutes?

I decided to make him pickles.

Sour dill pickles, to be precise. I set to work shopping for ingredients: crunchy miniature pickling cucumbers, fragrant fresh dill, pickling salt, vinegar, garlic, and black peppercorns and red pepper flakes for spice. I had never made pickles before, and I was surprised at how easy it turned out to be. Puttering around my sunny Brooklyn kitchen, I felt like a cross between Laura Ingalls Wilder and Nigella Lawsona sort of quirky, prairie-style domestic goddess. When I was all finished, I packed my pickles into a pretty glass jar, taped on a label, and tied a piece of ribbon around the lid.

A few weeks later when Alex arrived home, I slid the jar of pickles into my purse and rode the bus over to his apartment. Standing on his doorstep I felt a great jumble of emotions: nervous, excited, scared, and impatient. We had been dating for less than six months, and he had been gone for a significant chunk of that time. What if he met someone else? What if he didnt say I love you again?

He opened the door. I made you pickles, I blurted. And three years later, we got married.

If there is a better way to show your affection for someone than by making that person a delicious edible (or drinkable) gift, Id like to know what it is. All my life Ive been saying thanks, I love you, Im sorry, or Im thinking of you with food. I made Cornmeal Biscotti with Cranberries, Pecans, and White Chocolate () to give out as favors at my own engagement party. (I got more compliments on the brittle than I did on my cute Anthropologie sundress, and people are still begging me for the recipe.) Ive always abided by that old saying, tis better to give than to receive, but Id add that best of all is to give something that youve made yourself.

People are always impressed when you present them with a homemade gift from your kitchen, be it a sack of Spicy Peanut Caramel Corn (through the trouble, they invariably exclaim. But here is a secret: kitchen crafts are incredibly easy. Most of the recipes in this book can be prepared in less than an afternoons time, and you dont have to be a culinary wunderkind for the results to look as delectably perfect as anything you would find on the shelf of your local gourmet food shop, or table at the farmers market.