The best food and sustainability gifts for 2023

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When I started this newsletter, I wanted to fill a gap I saw in food business and sustainability reporting. This also applies to gift guides.

So what do you get for the climate-conscious foodie? A few ideas are below.

— Chloe Sorvino, staff writer


The Fresh Take Gift Guide

About the chef:

Filippone Sicilian oregano; hand-held immersion blender; Maui Nui Game Box; beeswax wrap; Manatee Tea Infuser; Jacobson Salt Box; Kitchen for “Forever Peeler” materials; Brooklyn Dehli garlic achaar; clamping paddle; crease knife; Wild-caught Alaskan salmon and scallops; Stay at the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School in Sicily (pictured above); Rancho Gordo beans.

For the spiritual:

Small beaten mekal; Via Carota bottled cocktails; Forthave Spirits amari; coupe cocktail glasses; tin ice bucket; carafe; good olives.

For the gardener:

Seed storage box; compost bin and worms from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm; shopping bag; collection basket; wooden swing tree.

About the host:

A giant tin of Spanish potato chips; Enamel carafe; fish-shaped bottle; Ice cream bowls; jam molds; champagne saber; felt coasters; Anchovy Fishwife; Glass straws.

About Kemper:

Off-Grid Solar Panel Electricity Grid by Goal Zero; grill over an open flame; feed grates; wide-brimmed sun hat.

The Eight Nights of Hanukkah Cookbook Review.

My sister and I love to exchange cookbooks during Hanukkah – then we have our own year-round book club ready to go. Here are my top eight food books to give as gifts this year.

Sohla El-Waylly’s Start here

To Clancy Miller About culture

To Nancy Silverton The cookie that changed my life

To Leah Koenig Portico

Rose Previte’s Maidan

To Simon Bahada Malta

by Pascal Baudar Wildcrafted vinegar

of Sergio Herman Mussels


Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meatout now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.


What is fresh

A blueberry shortage has hit American supermarkets

This year’s El Niño weather pattern has damaged Peru’s blueberry crop, reducing supplies reaching the Americas about half.

“They had an endless summer in Peru, and for blueberries, that had consequences,” says Casey Cronquist, president of both the US Blueberry Council and the North American Blueberry Council. “It is for the first time in the history of this industry where we’ve had such a big contraction in supply because of how big Peru has become globally.”

Sohla El-Waylly on cookbooks, Dan Levy and becoming “Ms. breakfast

The Los Angeles-born chef, restaurateur and YouTube personality has worn many hats over the past decade. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), El-Whaley worked at a number of Michelin-starred New York establishments (such as Atera and Del Posto) before opening a diner, Hail Mary, in Brooklyn in 2016.

Thanks for reading the 92nd edition of Forbes Fresh Take! Tell me what you think. Subscribe to Forbes Fresh Take here.


Chloe Sorvino leads food and agriculture coverage as a staff writer on the Forbes corporate team. her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022 with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting for Forbes have taken her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, parched farms in California’s Central Valley, burned national forests logged by a lumber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha, and even a chocolate croissant factory designed as a medieval castle in northern France.

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