salty and sweet

are you being hosted this weekend? hostess gifts can be both easy to shop for and hard...on one hand, there are several quick, easy wins. a bottle of wine, a bunch of beautiful flowers, or a nicely presented plant can't go wrong and i'm a big fan of all those options. but then there are the times you want to go a little different. for times like that, i love the idea i saw on my baking addiction of giving homemade vanilla sea salt. 

first, i think it's beyond lovely to give something you made, and what's different about this is that it's not a batch of brownies or a cake that's eaten and then over that day, one and done. this is more of a slow burn - something that can be kept in the pantry of the recipient and used many different ways over many weeks and months, and each time they taste it and discover a new use for the salty and sweet treat, they'll think of you and the lovely hosts they were on the night they got it from you. i love that! 

 

if you're not fancy with a crafting tool that makes perfect labels, which is like a different language to me, i think a plain paper tag (even one neatly cut from a grocery bag) with a hand-scrawled "vanilla sea salt" is kind of more charming. and this way, there's no mistaking who made it...from your kitchen to theirs.