Holiday Gift Guide: The locavore

For more gift ideas: The Baker, The Food Snob, The Home Cook and The Merrymaker THE LOCAVORE What to get the locavores on your list? They’ve already stocked their larders with Missouri wine, locally roasted coffee and plenty of jam from the farmers’ market. Tickle their little local hearts with any one of these Missouri-made products. 1. Backdoor Harvest This is so local, they’ll have to invent a new phrase for it. The ladies at Backdoor Harvest will prepare, plant and tend a garden in your very own backyard. They’ll even harvest the crops and leave them for you at your back door. You can’t get any more local than that. Prices start around $5 per square foot of garden. farmers@backdoorharvest.com or 314.479.9187. 2. Mom’s Originals gourmet pretzels These cute chocolate-covered pretzels, made by a local mother-daughter team, are the perfect salty-sweet stocking-stuffer. $3.25 each. Available at multiple St. Louis retailers, momsoriginals.com. 3. Jailhouse Jalapeño Brew Is it a dip? A marinade? A basting sauce? Who cares? This pleasantly spicy sauce, named as such because owner Kim Jones works for the Missouri Department of Corrections, can serve any number of culinary purposes. All of them legal. $5.49. Sappington Farmers’ Market, 8400 Watson Road, Crestwood, 314.843.7848. 4. Pumpkin-ginger-spice tea Any good locavore will tell you we don’t grow tea in Missouri. Well, we don’t grow black or green tea, but we do make herbal tea. Traveling Tea roasts and dehydrates locally grown pumpkins for this blend, which also incorporates Rooibos tea and spices. $6 per ounce. Traveling Tea, 3006 S. Jefferson Ave., Suite 104, St. Louis, 314.477.8516. 5. Elderflower cordial A lightly floral, slightly sweet soft drink made by the folks who run Ozark Forest Mushrooms. Your locavore will find it perfectly refreshing when mixed with sparkling water or even with sparkling wine. Sparkling Missouri wine, of course. $7. Available at the Ozark Forest Mushrooms stand at the Maplewood Wintermarket at Schlafly Bottleworks, Sat., Nov. 20 and Dec. 18 – 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., 314.531.9935. 6. Cure Club First rule about Cure Club? Don’t talk about Cure Club. Just enjoy Cure Club. A year’s membership will get you four installments of cured meats and other charcuterie from local artisans Salume Beddu. $30 membership fee plus $45 per quarterly package. Salume Beddu, 3467 Hampton Ave., St. Louis, 314.353.3100.