Below are a few gift and stocking stuffer ideas for the foodies, gardeners, and those who want to buy local.

Find a local bookstore that sells regional cookbooks. You should be able to find cookbooks that focus on the seasonal foods of your region written by those who live and cook in the season.

Relatedly, find a regional vegetable gardening book. Generic gardening books are helpful, but if you want to know when the earliest date is you can plant your spring garden, a regional book is more helpful. 

Organic and heirloom seeds make unique items as stocking stuffers.

Honey and honey-based products make sweet, healthy gifts or stocking stuffers.

Put a pretty bow on a bottle of wine from a local winery. You don’t necessarily have to run to the winery to buy it if you don’t have the time. Many wine stores have a regional section.  

Purchase a membership to Slow Food USA in the gift recipient’s name if he or she doesn’t already have one. Find out more at slowfoodusa.org.

Give someone a bag of fair trade coffee, a small bag of organic sugar, and a fun mug purchased from a local potter.

Chances are the slow foodie in your life already has reusable grocery bags, but what about reusable produce bags?

If your slow foodie always has a bowl of kitchen scraps on the counter-top, help keep them in style with a kitchen counter compost bucket that hides the potato peels in winter and keeps the fruit flies away from the melon rinds in summer.

Gift certificates to local stores that carry locally grown or locally prepared food helps keep food dollars right here at home.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!