It's beginning to look a lot like Xmas!

All I want for Christmas is... not another pair of toe-socks (no offense, Mom) or body lotion/soap set.

The Bay Area is rife with unique eating experiences, culinary talent, and tasty goods made with lots of love. Why not support local businesses, while giving someone a gift they won't be re-gifting?

(Ahem, for the record, if you do want to re-gift any of these, I'd gladly accept items 1 through 10).

1. CSA subscription (for the Lazy)

Bay Area: Buy Fresh Buy Local

I love having my CSA box of fresh, organic, in-season fruits and veggies delivered right to my door every other week. Many are flexible, customizable, and available for convenient delivery to your home or nearby location. A few to get you started on your search:

• Eatwell Farm (includes option for pasture-raised eggs)
• Farm Fresh to You
• Frog Hollow Farm (all fruit; during the winter, supplemented with items from the farm kitchen like granola, dried fruit, and olive oil)
• Full Belly Farm
• Two Small Farms (Mariquita)
• Soul Food Farm (pastured poultry and eggs)
• Terra Firma Farms

2. Socola Chocolatier "Holiday Chocolate Truffle Collection {on a faux bear rug}," $25 (for the Cheeky)

Socola Chocolatier, holiday collection {on a faux bear rug}

This Oakland-based, sister-run chocolate company is modern, sassy, and full of delectable personality. The 12-piece holiday assortment includes the following flavors: Hazelnut Gianduja (a milk chocolate truffle blended with roasted hazelnuts "bundled up in a fashionable nutty parka"), Hot in Hia (a champagne truffle with notes of fruit and honey, named in honor of the bubbly personality of the girls' grandmother Hia), Le Frog Neat (a smoky confection made with 10-year-old Laphroaig Scotch whisky), and Pumpkin Burnt Caramel (a warm mix of pumpkin pie spices, burnt caramel, Hawaiian sea salt and a splash of brandy).

3. Recchiuti Confections "Creativity Explored III: Toys," $21 (for the Philanthropic Art-lover)

Recchiuti Confections, Creativity Explored III: Toys

These art-adorned chocolates combine Michael Recchiuti's signature Burnt Caramel chocolate confections, with the work of Vincent Jackson, SF native and long-time artist at the Creativity Explored studio. Creativity Explored is a Bay Area nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell their art. $2 from each sale goes to support Creativity Explored.

4. Jimmyjane Milk Chocolate AFTERGLOW Massage Oil Candle, $28 (for After Hours)

Jimmyjane, Milk Chocolate AFTERGLOW

If it's a different kind of chocolate experience you're after, look no further. When heated, this candle liquefies into high-slip massage oil made with jojoba, shea butter, vitamin E, soy, aloe, and other botanical extracts. Bonus: it comes with a body brush to assist in painting the warm oil onto the skin. Extra Bonus: it smells delicious.

5. Boccalone Large Gift Box, $52 (for the Carnivore)

Chris Cosentino, Boccalone

Nothing says Happy Holidays like Tasty Salted Pig Parts. This homage to salumi contains two 8-ounce Boccalone salami (chosen from available flavors like Orange & Wild Fennel Salame, Soppressata di Calabria, Brown Sugar and Fennel Salame, and Salame Pepato), a t-shirt, and one 9-ounce jar of Whole-Grain Mustard. If the whole gift box thing isn't your style, take your pick of hand-crafted porcine delights from the Boccalone meat locker. I, for one, may or may not be maxing out my luggage weight limit this Christmas flight home on Nduja ("en-DOO-ya")...so much velvety, spicy Nduja.

6. Jessie Steele Aprons, $30.95-$33.95 (for the Lovely Hostess)

Photo by Jessie Steele, from left to right: Bib Ava Cabbage Rose Apron, Half Audrey Cherry Cupcakes Apron, Bib Gigi French Toil Apron with Terry Towel

These vintage 1940's and 50's-inspired hostess aprons are so cute and fabu, they just make me want to put on my pearls, bake a cake and drink a martini at the same time.

7. Cookbooks from Bay Area Culinary Greats (for Those Who Can Take the Heat)

Ad hoc at Home

These cookbooks will be sure to inspire some magic in your home kitchen:

• Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller
• Demolition Desserts: Recipes from Citizen Cake by Elizabeth Falkner
• Fields of Greens by Annie Somerville
• Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook by Cindy Pawlcyn
• Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson
• Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen
• The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers.

Note: you may want to pair this gift with a laminating machine, drool.

8. La Cocina Artisan Gift Box, The Half-Pint, $35 (for the Snack-Happy Do-Gooder)

La Cocina Gift Box, The Half-Pint

These gift boxes are filled with an assortment of hand-made, sweet and salty snacks from local small food businesses enrolled in La Cocina's incubator program. Snack to your heart's content and feel good about supporting local food entrepreneurs.

9. Cooking Classes (for the Ambitious)

Group Cook

Because if you send someone you love to a cooking class, chances are good it will come back ten-fold! There are many options in SF alone, ranging in price, time commitment, and topic. For a more formal school setting, there is the highly regarded Tante Marie's Cooking School. Urban Kitchen SF hosts affordable, skill/project specific classes and workshops themed around the DIY Slow Food concept (e.g. brewing Kombucha, baking bread, composting), as does CUESA at the Ferry Building. And butchery is hot as ever, as Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats or Tia Harrison of Avedano's Holly Park Market can tell you. SF Station also has a comprehensive of culinary schools and social cooking classes in the city.

10. Unique Dining Experiences (for the Hungry)

Photo by Outstanding in the Field

And finally, you can't go wrong with a fantastic meal. There is no shortage of phenomenal restaurants in the Bay Area, but if you dig a little, you can also find some interesting out-of-the-box options. Outstanding in the Field offers gift certificates (although, be sure to stay on top of the 2010 schedule once it's announced because these stunning dinners book up quickly). For something more stealth and mysterious, check out the underground supperclub scene at The Ghetto Gourmet.

So what are you waiting for? Now Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen...

Happy holidays, happy gift-giving, and happy eating to all.

This pages of this week's Entertainment Weekly are sprinkled with their holiday gift ideas. (Dear Amazon: No matter how many mags, blogs, or reps flog your new Kindle, I'm never going to use it. While I don't love the space my biblio excesses take up, I love the smell, touch, and heft of real books way too much. Another thing I love too much? Spending $399 in far more worthy places. Love, Stephanie) As a television obsessive, a few EW foodie gifts stood out for me. There's the old-new hamburger phone from the new It-Movie, Juno $19.99 (wards.com), the Hung knife that will allow you to "chop like the champ" $210 (korin.com), and the wine, 2002 Conti Sertoli Salis Sforzato, that might make you feel dirty, sexy, and monied for $55 (vinositeshop.com).

That's all fine and dandy, but if you want to spread some San Francisco love across the country, try dousing your loved ones with these local gift ideas.

June Taylor Foodstuffs: Aside from her usual delectable pots of jams and jellies, at this time of year June Taylor also has port-soaked fruitcake and vegetarian mincemeat. Note to the ex-pats and Anglophiles out there: grab these while the going's good. She also has candied citrus peels (blood orange, Seville orange, Rangpur lime, Meyer lemon), fruit paste, and pears preserved in cassis. (Cake: $30; Mincemeat: $26; Pears: $36/$18; Fruit Paste: $15; Candied Citrus Peel: $14)

Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food: This new cookbook from the famed Bay Area chef is a must for those of us who collect cookbooks, meals, and menus from Chez Panisse. Far more simple and straightforward than her other cookbooks, The Art of Simple Food, not only takes individual ingredients and breaks them down into uncomplicated, delicious dishes but Waters teaches the salivator about pots and pans, menu planning, and how to stock your pantry and choose your ingredients. ($35)

Anything from Kermit Lynch: The man carries some wines as low as $11.00, okay? I mean, honestly, with Kermit Lynch vetting your wine, can you really go wrong here? I didn't think so. Bonus: you don't need your own globe-trotting Nick George/Darling to know it's going to be good.

Cocoa Bella Chocolates: If you opened a box of chocolates in my grandma's house, chances were good you'd be in for an unpleasant surprise. While she didn't bite into each chocolate to see if she was going to like it, she did jab a fingernail into the bottom, thus allowing the contents to ooze onto the frilled paper. With their custom box builder, Cocoa Bella ensures you never have to poke, prod, or bite a chocolate to determine its stomach worthiness. ($40 for 20 pieces, $75 for 40 pieces)

DeLessio's Chocolate Bubble Wrap: You use bubblewrap to pad your presents, why not eat it? As addictive as popping the bubbles themselves, DeLessio offers six different flavors for $16.50 a pound.

St. George Absinthe Verte: Last week, Lance Winters of St. George's Spirits in Alameda got the news that he could start selling his newly concocted Absinthe Verte. Banned in the U.S. since 1912, cocktailians can finally wrap their lips and brain cells around the anisette-flavored green beverage that reputedly made madmen out of some of history's most celebrated artists and writers. San Francisco's Green Fairy goes on sale December 21st and supplies are limited, so I shouldn't really be telling you about this if I want any left for myself. ($75)