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I hope you are all enjoying / enjoyed / about to enjoy your Christmas Day with lots of lovely food and not too much cooking stress!  I thought it would be interesting to hear what cooking related presents our members have been given.  I have a beautiful new tagine (I hope EYB will show me lots of recipes for it!), Mary Berry's autobiography, Murielle Valette's Patisserie which looks so good I'm desperate to try it out, and finally, The French Kitchen by Michel Roux Jr which I have to say looks downright scary but wonderful too!  I'm very happy with them all.

Oh, that nut liqueur sounds excellent!  On the last big grocery shopping early this week, I treated myself by picking up something I'd never heard of, pear port; it's semi-local, from Gordonville, VA.  Have yet to try it, but have some Stilton and crackers, and figure it will be great to sip with that.

The s.o. got me Michael Pollan's Cooked, which he figures is really a present for both of us, as he's interested in it too.  I'm delighted, and already am a chapter in.  He also got me the book at the top of my wishlist, Tom Burford's Apples of North America.

I was given 50 Foods by Edward Behr and The Kinfolk Table (I'll admit I dropped heavy hints about both).  I also got a chopping board with sides that fold into a funnel to transport ingredients to the pan.  I'm a bit on the fence with that one.  I'll have to see it it's a help or not.

hillsboroks - that walnut liqueur sounds delicious.  For the first time I made a infused drink myself, as a Christmas present (while keeping some back for myself).  It was Spiced pomegranate gin from Jamie Oliver.  Interesting, quite sweet and fruity.  It did make me think I would like to experiment more with liqueurs - maybe limoncello next.

Strange - I've asked for some unusual liqueurs for Christmas from my family in Scotland (I won't see them until New Year so don't know if I've got any yet).  Maybe cooking with liqueuers will be the new trend for next year?!

Hillsboroks, I really like the look of Wintersweet. Do let us know how you get on with it.

Jane I made this very easy Nigella dessert with limoncello for some friends last week - everyone loved it.

Fun question!  I was given a cutting board that has measurements engraved into it ("OCD Cutting Board").  Also (after I had mentioned them), a Zac Designs Ice Cream Container for taking ice cream to friends/family, and a Tovolo Glide-A-Scoop Ice Cream Tub.

My brother-and-law and his wife gave us a smoker for Christmas, which I'm so excited about trying out soon! With my mom raising hogs, I've been wanting to experiment with smoking some pork on my own. (Our butcher does wonderful smoking, true, but it is expensive getting a lot of big hams done every time we do a large hog.)

My sweetie got me two cookbooks: "The Italian Slow Cooker" and "Da Vinci's Kitchen: A Secret History of Italian Cuisine". But our big present to each other is we're going away to Italy in a few days, for over two weeks, and planning on eating our way through Rome, Napoli and down the Amalfi Coast. We have an outdoor pizza oven on order to be delivered when we return so of course we have to "sample" as much Neopolitan pizza as we can before then! :)

I splurged on a new oven for my Christmas pressie: a nice Miele "speed" oven  (microwave/convection combo).. trouble is it won't arrive from Germany until mid-february! Couldn't quite run to the steamer oven as well! It will be so nice to have almost instant accurate temperatures.. no more will cakes take 3 times as long as the recipe suggest! I've put up with the old oven for a year and recently "worked" out that if I set it at 250 and left it for 20 minutes it would evenually reach 200! Mind you, probably don't need it to make teh fabulous ice creams in The Blue Ducks: another well received gift! Now to remodel the kitchen!!

I'm with you, debkellie.  Not the speed oven, but with an upcoming kitchen remodel.  Thinking about the electrolux (oh that blue interior, the glide shelves, and a proofing setting!).