Valentine’s Day Gift Guide 2022

This Valentine’s day please give yourself a reward (large or small) for having made it this far.

And let’s go wider with our gift-giving. Galentine’s Day (great idea, terrible name) was just the beginning. Let’s include family members, friends, even pets. If you love someone, give them a treat.

The All-Clad 4 quart slow cooker, ($175) is a great gift to buy yourself. It doesn’t look too aggressively large on the kitchen counter, but is still big enough for make meals for four. It is less about getting yet another appliance and more about the irrefutable fact that waking up to a hot breakfast is life-changing.

Overnight Hot Steel Cut Breakfast Oats

Before bed, butter the inside of the ceramic liner with a teaspoon of softened butter to prevent sticking (do not skip this step.) Add one cup of dry steel cut oats (not the quick cooking version and definitely not rolled oats) a diced apple (don’t bother peeling it,) some walnut pieces, a quarter cup of golden raisins, several shakes of ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice and 4 1/2 cups of liquid (water, milk, nut milk or any combination of the three) and set the slow cooker on ‘low’ for 8 hours and hit the start button.

Then tidy the counter and lay out nice bowls, spoons, napkins and a non-scratch serving spoon (I like this silicone one from Muji, $12.90) and when you wake up you will have a hot breakfast waiting (the machine will switch to warm after the eight hour cycle is complete) and you will think ‘How lovely. My staff prepared breakfast for me,’ and your day will be off to the best possible start.

The Kosta Boda Snowball votive holder, $49, WilliamAshley.com, is a 1973 Scandi design classic from Sweden that is still in production. Just one (they’re three inches tall) adds a warm, refractive glow to your mantle or coffee table in these later winter months. It’s wintery, but not Christmassy.

Zara Vetiver Pamplemousse eau de parfum, $39.90, Zara.com, created by Jo Malone no less, is not a complicated scent. It’s actually pretty linear, just vetiver and grapefruit. But what it lacks in nuance, it makes up for in eye-opening, happy-making grapefruity zest and rain-soaked, humid jungle vetiver. It is so wonderfully alive and invigorating and because it is (relatively) inexpensive, you can use it liberally. Spray a giant cloud and walk through it? Sure. Bring life back to a stuffy a stuffy room? Absolutely. It’s not a classically ‘romantic’ rich or floral Valentine’s scent, but it is the promise of spring.

Did you read The Thorn Birds (Indigo.ca) when it came out in 1977? How about Scruples, Princess Daisy, Flowers in the Attic or Judy Blume’s Forever? A nostalgic dive into the books we read right under our parents’ noses is calming in a way that a new book just isn’t. This is the perfect gift for an old friend to remind them of just how long you’ve known each other.

I am totally charmed (sorry) by the idea of wearing a loved one’s (spouse, child or pet) diamond-studded initial around your neck. These wee 8mm high letters (not including the ‘bail’) are from Canadian-owned Mejuri.com, $265.

Toronto’s Soma Chocolatemaker should get a medal for making sophisticated high quality chocolates that include all the fun and mouth fizz of pop rocks. Their new Wild Berry Pop bar, $12, somachocolate.com of white chocolate with fruit and pop rocks is as if the gods somehow made fruity cereal milk into a creamy, melty solid that also fizzes. And how beautiful is this packaging?

Worth It: Biologique Recherche Masque Vernix

When it’s minus 10 degrees outside and the air inside is as dry as a space station airlock you have to bring out the big skincare guns. I wouldn’t waste an expensive gem like Biologique Recherche Creme Masque Vernix, $210, (biologique-recherche.com for stockists) on my face when it’s warm out, but come endless January, you do what you gotta do.

The name is something of a metaphor. Masque Vernix is meant to mimic the vernix caseosa, the waxy protective layer coating the skin of newborns. This mask takes your winter-beaten, sad, ashy face and replaces it with the glowy untroubled visage of someone who just returned from a month at a beach shack in Trancoso.

The ingredients are a greatest hits package of nurturing elements like ceramides (the fatty ‘grout’ between the tiles that are your skin cells) cholesterol (bad for the blood vessels, excellent for your skin) and ‘amniotic fluid’, an extract that replicates the protein and lipid-rich amniotic fluid bathing fetuses in the womb, because they need cosseting and protecting and so do we.

Skip this if you are squeamish: A colleague once whispered to me that her former surgical nurse-slash-crazy aunt, now in her 80s, claimed that back in the day she and her fellow nurses would save the vernix from c-section newborns to use as skin cream. I am pretty certain this is wildly unethical and breaks any number of rules and probably not even true, so you did’t it from me.

#sweaterweatherperfume Moroccanoil Brumes du Maroc

There’s a house-cleaning cheat where you only do the bare minimum of wiping down the stove and sink with your most heavily-scented cleaning product to make the whole house smell like you deep-cleaned even when you didn’t.

Moroccanoil Brumes du Maroc hair and body fragrance mist, $36, Sephora.ca, operates from the same principle. Spray your dry hair and body with that signature Moroccanoil amber, floral, earthy scent to trick you into thinking you just did a hair mask. And because Brumes du Maroc contains argan (aka Moroccan) oil, vitamin E and glycerin, your winter-parched skin and hair will even get some immediate and always welcome moisture. Spray liberally when you emerge from the shower and then wrap your beautifully scented self in your favourite sweater. It’s a perfect lift when we’re smack in the middle of winter.

And if you spray your hair after washing and then twist it into a top knot, when you release it after a time, not only will you get summery waves, but also that wonderful scent which will have somehow amplified in the intervening hours. And while I would never endorse getting an actual sun tan, this fragrance is also perfect to wear after using self-tanner, both as a complement to your ‘faux’ bronzed skin and also to hide that, uh, ‘singular’ self-tanner smell.

Weekend Baking: Panettone Bread Pudding

A sprinkling of turbinado sugar on top of your pudding creates crunch to contrast with the soft, squidgy centre.

I always think that if I get past Christmas without gorging myself, I’ll be ok. But then comes endless January and I start baking.

A giant panettone recently sat on our kitchen counter for a few days: rich, eggy and studded with craggy chocolate chunks. And even though we kept shaving off slices throughout the day, it was so large that it appeared relatively undiminished until it got semi-stale and I got tired of looking at it.

The panettone bread pudding I made with it is a tweaked version of Nigella Lawson’s ginger jam bread pudding and it was, all modesty aside, absolutely perfect and what the British call ‘moreish’ in that you can’t stop eating it. Please try it as there is still so much winter left.

Panettone Bread Pudding

1/2 stick of butter

4 eggs

3 T granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup Sultana raisins

1/2 cup rum

Enough leftover panettone to slice and fill a 1 /12 litre casserole or baking dish (approx 10 slices)

700 ml total of milk and cream (I used 500 ml of 10% table cream with 200 ml of skim milk because that’s what we had)

1 Tbs turbinado sugar for sprinkling over top

Method

Preheat the oven to 375º F.

Gently heat up a quarter cup of raisins covered in rum on a medium low stove or microwave for a minute.

Butter a 1 1/2 quart casserole (I used an old cornflower pattern Corningware dish because it retains heat perfectly and it is a scientifically proven fact that using your mother’s old Corningware dishes makes everything taste better) and then slice a quarter of a large panettone into 1 inch thick triangular slices. You can thinly butter each slice as well to add to the richness. Don’t butter too lavishly as you can easily go overboard and you will be dotting the whole affair with butter anyway before it goes into the oven.

Into a bowl, place your cream/milk mixture along with four beaten eggs, the vanilla extract and three tablespoons of sugar and set aside.

Start placing your panettone slices standing up into your buttered baking dish. You can alternate pointy end down with pointy end up to give some texture to the top of your assembly. (If you quartered your panettone vertically before slicing you get pointy slices and if I could draw I would draw an illustration for you, but just picture cutting your panettone into giant wedges like it’s a cake.)

At this point remove your raisins from the stove where hopefully they have plumped up nicely in all that rum. Scatter them between your bread slices and on top. You want raisins all the way through this dish, not just on top.

You can also pack in any stray chunks of panettone throughout the final mix. It doesn’t have to look too tidy. It’s going to soon be drowned by the milk and egg mixture anyway. Just fill in any large gaps if you feel so inclined. This is a very loose ‘do it however you like’ recipe.

Pour the milk/cream/egg mixture over top making sure to soak ever area and then allow it a few minutes to absorb into the panettone. You can push the panettone down a bit with a clean hand to submerge it a bit if you need to.

Dot the top with a divided tablespoon of butter if you choose and then sprinkle your turbinado sugar evenly across the surface. This will add a wonderfully crunchy top to contrast with your pudding’s soft and yielding interior.

Put your (uncovered!) casserole or pudding dish on a cookie sheet, place on the centre rack of the oven and bake for 45 minutes, but do peek in starting at the 35 minute mark. If your oven heats unevenly, give your dish a 180 degree rotation after 20 minutes or so but it’s not really necessary. This is a sturdy pudding, not delicate piecrust.

Remove from the oven after 45 minutes by which time it should be nicely browned and puffed up. (Sadly though, it will sink in the centre as it cools.) I would say wait until it does cool before serving, but why? If you are only sharing it with family, then to heck with societal norms and just stand over the stove with a giant spoon and dig in while it’s still hot. Melted chocolate is the best chocolate.

Glowing Skin For the Super Lazy

With most things in life, you have to put in the work to see results. You can’t eat Twizzlers at four p.m. every day and expect to lose weight. This is tiresome and unfair.

Dermalogica Age Smart Skin Resurfacing Cleanser, $63, dermalogica.ca, is made for anyone who finds multi-step skincare routines needlessly complex and time-consuming. Made with easily-tolerated lactic acid (the greatest exfoliant for older skin because it also moisturizes) Dermalogica’s Age Smart Resurfacing Cleanser is a two-for-one hero.

Use it as a regular daily cleanser (no more than once a day) but then twice a week turn it into a mask. Massage it in and instead of immediately rinsing it off, leave it on for a minute (start slowly) and then rinse and note how the gentle-but-mighty lactic acid handily lifts off dead skin cells, speeding their turnover and leaving your skin noticeably smoother and glowing. And just like that, you’ve just given yourself a fuss-free exfoliating mask.

Follow up with Dermalogica’s Biolumin-C Vitamin C Gel moisturizer, $89, Sephora.com, for even more brightening (gràce à vitamin C) and you will have just done good things for your skin with practically no effort. And don’t forget to use sunscreen afterwards to protect your newly peeled skin. You wouldn’t want sun damage to ruin all that effort.

Tom Ford White Suede: #sweaterweatherperfume for bitterly cold days

Tom Ford’s White Suede eau de parfum should have been a superstar.

Launched in 2009, White Suede (50 ml, $335, The Bay) has been quietly earning fans as a smoky-into-powdery, musk skin scent. Beloved but always under the radar, it never reached the front ranks. Maybe it was too subtle to be a huge, noisy hit?

Back then, Tom Ford was best known for his room-filling, attention-grabbing Black Orchid, so it’s easy to see how White Suede slipped by unnoticed. Unlike Black Orchid, which smells like seduction or the promise of a party, White Suede is what you want on ‘big sweater and undone hair’ days, which are most days to a lot of us. Maybe this stealth allure resonates more now?

White Suede is quiet. Even though it is rich and layered, courtesy of rose, oud, saffron and frankincense, with unexpected brightness from thyme and lily of the valley, it never shouts. It’s a powdery, soft musk, in a quietly smoky leathery frame.

It’s perfect when you want something singular and not easily identified. And it will never turn sweet or overly floral as it dries down. Which is the kind of integrity and steadfastness we need going forward.

Baby, It's Cold Outside: Bengal Spice Tea

It hurts my delicate minimalist sensibilities to post a photo of this colourful box, but Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice is crucial to getting through the chill of winter. It also keeps me from rooting through the remaining Christmas chocolate come late afternoon, but this is not a diet post. I hate New Year’s diet posts.

Bengal Spice herbal tea is my secret shame. It doesn’t taste at all like tea, but rather like high school-era Dentyne cinnamon gum. It’s that strong. It was first served to me by a friend who takes her tea very seriously, so I was surprised that she was drinking something you can buy at the grocery store. But I instantly became a Bengal Spice true believer and I haven’t been without a box since.

I soon found out that other friends love it as well. We’re members of a secret society that has no meetings but is united by a love of this intense, ‘spice forward’ tea. Bengal Spice contains no sugar, but maybe our brains read the full-on cinnamon assault as sugar? I don’t know. And I stockpile it this time of year because I will drink many cups over these next few months, while all sorts of weather rage outside my window.

One tip: I do transfer the tea bags to a white enamel tin because the scent is pretty potent and it will permeate other items in your pantry if you let it. But I mainly do it because lord, that box is ugly.

An Authentic NYE With This One Simple Trick

Dark red lipstick and a pair of diamonds encrusted snakes winding their way up your arm is all you need for New Year’s Eve.

I’m going to make our quiet New Year’s Eve feel like a crowded 1990s party by getting Craig to blow cigarette smoke directly into my hair after I go hard with red lipstick and spray myself with an extravagant evening fragrance. I really miss the perfume-plus-smoke smell of a party and want to feel like I had a wonderful time at an overcrowded fête without actually spending time in an unventilated room with drunken strangers.

But where can I buy just one cigarette? Maybe lighting and then blowing out a stick of Palo Santo to wave around my head would work equally well, because Palo Santo is something I actually have.

And these two newish perfumes epitomize the big party vibe I crave.

Mugler Angel Nova eau de parfum, $115, Shoppers Drug Mart, launched last year when no one was feeling particularly festive, so I am drawing your attention to it now. It doesn’t smell much like the famously vanilla/patchouli/cotton candyish Angel. It’s more of a tipsy, smeared lipstick scent: all waxy rose and woods, patchouli and musk. It smells like being beautifully dressed and somewhat slutty, but slutty somewhere cool, like Venice.

Carolina Herrera Very Good Girl eau de parfum, $130, Shoppers Drug Mart, starts out as a happy, fizzy cocktail with lychee and red currant before deepening into dark rose and resinous vetiver. It’s like a shiv hidden under a poofy crinoline. Or like a sleek-limbed vamp in a black and white Helmut Newton photo (see above).

Burt’s Bees 100% natural Lip Crayon in Napa Vineyard, $9.99, London Drugs, is an under-appreciated gem with clean beauty bona fides at a drugstore price. The colour is a deep rich red, the formula is beautifully moisturizing and the twist up crayon format makes it easy to apply. We need the small joy of buying a glorious product that doesn’t make our wallets shriek. New year, new budgetary restraint, amirite?

Desperately Seeking Stuff: Obsessive Lockdown Shopping

I spotted this cream-coloured Goyard Saint Louis tote on the train from Cannes to Ventimiglia.

Have you bought anything weirdly out of character during these past almost two years? Have you indulged in any late-night tipsy shopping, fallen down an internet hole, weighed the merits of certain items, different colours, different sizes and then just bought them all? No judgment here.

We’re all looking for that dopamine hit that we used to get from oh, I don’t know, seeing people and living a normal life. Not sure if long, slow science agrees with me, but I am certain that the joy and relief we used to get from unloading onto friends over a glass of wine after a particularly hellish day has been replaced by hitting ‘Buy Now’ for a battery-powered milk frother from Amazon.

Homemade pastas and sauces in Ventimiglia

A usually sensible girlfriend of mine recently became obsessed with the Goyard Saint Louis tote bag. I hadn’t helped matters as I’d shown her a photo (main image) that I sneakily took on a train from Cannes to Ventimiglia back in June of 2019. And it really is a cute tote to take to a farmer’s market in Italy. (Europe, right? People cross borders on the weekend just for homemade pesto). But thirteen hundred euros for this particular discontinued colour on TheRealReal? You could actually fly to Europe from Canada and still have money left over. Like so many of us, I think my friend wants the trip and the bag was merely a proxy.

I’m bad too. After my lockdown online extravagance (I now own pretty much the entire Westman Atelier makeup line, have enough white linen bedding to outfit multiples guest bedrooms and never need to buy another scented candle) I am trying to transfer my dopamine-seeking to smaller items, specifically weird recherché liqueurs. Thirty or forty dollars is not an excessive amount of money to spend and even after the purchase is completed, there’s the time I’ll be happily absorbed researching new cocktails.

My latest strange liqueur is Licor 43, ($31.85, LCBO.com.) a popular Spanish vanilla, citrus and herb mix which apparently makes a screwdriver taste like a creamsicle. Works for me.

All is calm. All is bright.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!