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Give The Gift Of Help With Menus

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 2007

Holiday shopping for folks who read a menu more often than a cookbook is easy. Here are a few helpful suggestions for what to give people who prefer to dine or dial out.

Last year, I made and gave menu organizers for the first time. I had seen one during the summer at a Sarasota gift shop and was impressed at its usefulness.

I collected menus from restaurants I patronize, which I had crammed inside a kitchen drawer. Who doesn't have a mountain of take-out menus stacked on top of the fridge or piled in a corner next to the phone?

Organized by tabbed dividers allowing you to file menus by cuisine, the menu organizer I spied was a wee bit pricier than I was willing to pay. For a fraction of the cost and just a few inexpensive office supplies, I figured I could easily make one at home. It simply required a trip to Wal-Mart or an office supply store.

I purchased a three-ring binder, plastic-colored dividers with pockets and a home label maker. I labeled the binding "Let's Eat Out" and the individual tabs with names of assorted cuisines and food types - French, Asian, Mexican, seafood, pizza and so on.

When I was finished, I cleared out the kitchen drawer and replaced it with a handy, compact menu book that sits upright on a shelf. Now, meals on the fly are just a hassle-free phone call away.

Don't want to make one? Menu organizers can be ordered online from a variety of sources, including uncommongoods.com, amazon.com or wishingfish.com.

Happy with my new organizer, I decided to make them as Christmas gifts for my daughters, sister, brother and mother-in-law. Inside, I enclosed a few menus collected from joints I knew my friends and family frequent. I also inserted a gift card to their favorite local restaurants.

To me, there's nothing better than an evening out not having to spend money on the meal. Most restaurants offer gift cards or certificates on-site, over the phone or via their Web sites.

Depending on how you purchase them, they can be e-mailed or snail-mailed directly to the recipient or to you to wrap and present in person. Restaurant gift cards are especially thoughtful as gifts to people who might not otherwise ever eat out.

The values usually range from $10 to $100, depending on the establishment. Usually, the balance will carry forward if the entire amount is not used on the first visit.

Here's another gift possibility. What frequent restaurantgoer wouldn't be delighted to take along a wine or gourmet expert every time they dine out?

Programs for hand-held devices make that possible. I've been using Amy Reiley's Pocket Gourmet for at least five years. It has 2,300 dining-related terms that help me every time I stumble across an unknown menu item. I also use it to keep notes about the restaurant and to calculate tips.

Her newest product is Pocket Vineyard. Although I don't have it yet, the program is made up of four sections - tasting notes, vintage notes, food pairings and a glossary so that you can find out exactly what the sommelier meant when he tells you the wine has legs.

There are dozens of similar dining-related programs available for PDAs, such as Pocket Bartender, PDA Sommelier and DinersChoice. They generally cost $20 to $40.

Lynn Kessel can be reached at lkessel@mac.com or P.O. Box 286, Ruskin FL 33575-0286. Readers are encouraged to send their favorite recipes, comments and suggestions.

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