wine or a gift suited to their interests are best.

dessert usually is a great idea, but i wouldn't unless i knew whether or not they kept kosher. kosher is not just no pork/shellfish. its also no meat with dairy. some people are hardcore and won't even have dairy dessert if they had a meat meal. desserts are usually dairy in some fashion or may even have treif (non-kosher) gelatin.

i usually do nice guest soaps from l'ocitaine (sp?) or those bendel ones from B&BW, a gift suited to their interest or wine if i have no clue.

oh yeah, all wine is kosher. if you want "kosher" wine though, golan and herzog are decent. NO MANISCHEVITZ (sp?) it is awful.

Manischewitz isn't a wine, it's a Jewish joke. Please keep that in mind.

exactly! klp- have you tried the golan stuff? its actually really good.

Probably, but I just can't recall at the moment. When I was in Israel, we went to a wine factory right outside of Jerusalem and they had incredible wines there, and some of the strongest vodka that I have ever tasted.

lol clarify?

if you need clarification then you haven't had a glass of it!! yuck!!!

Nope, I'm lucky.. just didn't get the joke part... but I'm getting there. Slow day for the brain...

I once tried making sushi at home. I had the rolling bamboo mat thingy and everything. It was labour intensive and a big, messy (sticky rice anyone?) PITA.

My swedish neighbor made sushi on a regular basis when I lived in Belfast...it was rather tasty but she was unusually talented at cooking.

Most people tend to bring my parents gift cards to restaurants for parties/events. My mum and dad aren't fancy people, but now that the nest is empty, they can go out and have a date once in a while, and they appreciate the help with that.

Haha, seriously. Most of the time I've brought wine, hopefully I haven't dredged up some deep dark secret in the process.

Just to clarify the bringing food suggestion by some people..

A "hostess gift" is supposed to be something that she can enjoy after you leave. It is not meant to be served at the dinner or luncheon you're attending. Rather, it is meant to be a "thank you" for her fussing.. and for her to enjoy (not for the guests). So yes, can make an appropriate hostess gift if it is something like a box of chocolates or a gourmet pasta basket, rather than a dessert which she'll feel obligated to serve.

Sushi isn't hard to make. The key is using the correct rice. If you try to make it with Minute Rice.. forget it! You need to buy the traditional Japanese sticky rice.

A trick is to put plastic on the bamboo mat when you're pressing the rice on it to keep it from sticking to the mat.

Ok, I know I'm being petty, but Taualumna, can you go back and spell "appropriate" right for the thread title? I've been looking at it for 3 days, and it's driving me crazy.:)

Wow. I didn't notice until you said something, and I'm the grammar snob.

Yes, but Jewish hostesses are a whole other ballgame. Trust me.

Do they enjoy reading? Get them a nice coffee table book.

Most people don't like sushi, though; they don't want to eat it when someone else makes it, let alone trying to make it themselves.

I'd still go with wine and flowers, but hey if you can be more creative than that, more power to you.

No.. I didn't say to make sushi as a gift! I had suggested a sushi set as a hostess gift. Someone else had mentioned that they had trouble making sushi.. so the thread drifted a bit.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled suggestions on hostess gifts!

I love sushi much more than the average person does. It's pretty much the only food that I could eat for the rest of my life and not get sick of. However, if someone were to give me a sushi set as a gift, I would have no use for it whatsoever.

That's why it's important to find out, as stated above, what your hostess likes. If they have a brown thumb, for instance, a gardening book probably wouldn't be appropriate. This was just one suggestion among others.

Tau, what did you decide on?

I *was* using the correct rice. I went to a "Learn to Make Sushi" seminar offered by the Japan Exchange Club. And I did the pressing thing, and I even used saran wrap around the bamboo mat to make "inside out" rolls. Ehn......in the end, too much work, too much hassle, and the sushi that you can buy in my city is on par with what you'd eat in Japan (we have a lot of Japanese restaurants here and a lot of Japanese tourists too).

Ha ha...yeah, but if she did that, I don't think her boyfriend's mother wants a hockey jersey. LOL

When are you coming to visit me? Where I live, the sushi is CHEAP and GOOD. (the ocean is "right there", so the fish is FRESH, baby!)