Great Gift Ideas for the Household (Reader Favorites!)

31 Comments

1. I would love a cappuccino-espresso-latte-whathaveyou maker, but husband uses dairy milk and I use almond milk. Is it worth the trouble, since the machine would need cleaning between portions? To clarify, we both have intolerances that cause minor inconvenience (upset tummies, severe breakouts) but nothing like a severe allergy that requires medical intervention.

   1. It depends on how thoroughly you would need to clean the steam wand. For a true allergy, I am not sure I’d trust cleaning at all. For normal cleaning you just wipe the wand and clear the steam holes with a pin, which you have to do after every use anyway to keep the steam wand from getting clogged. For a more thorough cleaning it is easy to unscrew and rinse the tip of the steam wand, although that would be difficult to do while it was hot if you were making two drinks in a row.

      One solution would be to designate the primary machine for one type of milk and get a separate frother for the other type of milk.

      1. Yeah, if we had that situation in our house there’s no way the machine would be cleaned out between uses. I vote separate equipment for each type of milk.

   2. We have the nespresso delonghi lattissima, which uses a milk carafe that looks similar to the one featured above. It is recommended to flush it through with water after every use, which literally just requires holding down a button for a few seconds while it pulls water/steam through the milk attachment pieces. Maybe that flush would be sufficient for your purposes? in which case it is really seamless and easy. You would want a second carafe of course for the different milk types.

   3. I have a regular Nespresso machine without the milk frother, plus a battery-powered milk frothing wand. I can pour milk into a mug, warm it in the microwave, froth it with the wand, and pour a shot of espresso over the frothed milk. It’s not artisanal coffee, but it works, and I only need to rinse the end of the wand and put my mug in the dishwasher. I’d go for something like that, with two separate wands, if you’re both intolerant of the other’s milk.

   4. I think one of you uses a stand alone frother. I have one and it does a better job than the built in frother on my Gaggia machine.

2. Any one else have a favorite milk frother? My DH would love that. He’s a French press guy at home, but loves milk steamed/frothed just right.

   1. Budget up to $150 or so?

   2. We have one of those amazon no-name brand frothers like this and it works well. It’s not coffee house quality AT ALL but it’s warm frothy milk in 30 seconds with one button push and quick cleanup.

      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JEPP64C/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyRUZDSlVDWjFXOVZDJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTQ2MDM2MTFHNllRSTFXMDJYTyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNzI5MDY4M0ZYNTE0VjQzN01ISCZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2hxcF9zaGFyZWQmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&th=1

      1. I bought mine on Amazon too, recommended it above. I don’t think the exact brand is available any more (HadinEEon, whatever that is) but it works like a champ.

   3. Caffitaly “Latte” black milk frother. Works great, cost me $80, easy enough to clean.

3. My family used to give many gifts for the holidays, but surprisingly it has been an easy switch over the past couple of years to either not exchange gifts or to do small consumables or experience gifts like tickets to an event or a museum pass. I brought up not exchanging gifts to a few people, and others brought it up to me, and it really wasn’t the difficult or awkward exchange I was concerned it would be, it just became the norm after a year or two.

   1. My husband and I exchanged gifts our first year or two of dating but somewhere along the line we stopped and god it is such a relief not to have to spend hours agonizing over what to get him only to pick out something he doesn’t really need or want. Or the alternative, having a very transactional gift exchange where each person just picked out their own gift. I’m Grinchy I guess, but I really dislike exchanging gifts at the holidays, with the exception of giving gifts to children.

4. Can someone send me a script for dealing with a remote junior co-worker who has been scrounging for work and then checked out for Thanksgiving without doing the work (hard to tell when people are working remotely until it is too late) and blew a deadline (so I had to work through Thanksgiving to catch things up to not blow a bigger deadline)? This has never happened to me before (and if we still worked in offices, would have been more apparent earlier that someone was not coming in, possibly travelling). Today, co-worker mentioned by e-mail that they hadn’t done X yet and I’m a bit in shock that that they didn’t notice that I had sent out X last week ( so it got done somehow . . .) and then revised X in response to comments. I am at a loss for words b/c this is just clearly the sort of thing that one does not do.

   1. Are you their manager? Did you let them know you picked up X when they didn’t do the work?

   2. Why are you being weirdly passive aggressive? Why didn’t you follow up last Wednesday? Incredibly weird you just stepped in and did it and didn’t mention it.

      1. IDK — where I work, there are a lot of closing documents that go out to distribution lists. I could say “update the LIBOR replacement provisions” so that they go out a week before closing. I check everything before sending it and if it’s not done to my satisfaction, I don’t send out a bad document, I send it back if I have time and otherwise, I just fix it. But if I were supposed to be the fixer and saw my non-fixed document come out, I’d start with an apology. The senior associate is probably too busy right now to yell at me (but that would be deserved for dropping the ball).

   3. Background – how has this person’s work been in the past? Is this out of character for them or par for the course?

      1. Very meh.

   4. When you first gave the assignment, did you tell your associate that you needed it before Thanksgiving? Did you follow-up on Wednesday? Hard to tell from your original post.

5. I recently realized how grossly out of date my shoes are and I’m on a hunt for low ankle boots with little to no heel. I liked the Carson Piping Bootie from Fyre or the Carson Chelsea. I ordered a pair on Black Friday that just arrived. They’re a little too big and now every other option I like is sold out. Can someone please recommend another low boot in a good brand? Budget is $200ish, will wear them with dresses, just want something that looks slightly on trend!

   1. Not sure if they are on trend–the styles you picked seem pretty classic/timeless to me–but I am a big fan of my Ecco boots. They don’t have the specific style I am wearing this year but the Sartorelle 25 are a classic Chelsea boot shape and they also have some lug sole styles that would be more trendy. (I’m not a fan and have opted out of that trend.) They are very comfortable boots.

   2. Lucky brand Basel leather bootie has been super fun to wear. I’ve owned two pairs now in different colours. Might be too much of a heel for you, though. I have knee issues and occasionally they’ll crop up, but the issues aren’t serious enough for me to stop wearing the bootie a couple days a week.

   3. I love my Toms ankle boots

6. I’ve always wanted one of those superautomatic espresso machines. Where it grinds the beans and just makes your entire latte/cappuccino/espresso at the touch of a button. Do any of you have one? Are they worth it?

   I don’t currently have a Sbux daily habit so I can’t justify the cost that way.

   1. I’ve been researching these on coffee fanatic boards and subs, and what I’ve found is that any machine that has an included grinder is a giant PITA. They’re hard to clean, the grinder is never good quality compared to a la carte, and they’re first to fail. Most people recommend mixing and matching, like a solo grinder with a moka pot. So I ended up buying nothing, because picking a bunch of separate pieces was giving me decision fatigue.

   2. If you are not a daily drinker, I don’t think it is worth the money. It would still be cheaper for you to go & buy ready drink in a nice cafe (did I mention you wouldn’t have to clean the machine in the cafe?).
      I have fancy-coffee friends and I drink 5-7 coffees per day and I prefer – separate grinder for coffee (I have a cheap one from Lidl/Aldi and it does the job perfectly), a stove moccha device from Ikea (the largest they had), a milk frother from Nespresso (Aerocino, it warms and foams the milk). These 3 small devices are easy to store out of sight, easy to clean, do the job and the combined cost is nothing compared to a price of the fully-automated machine. And if one of them breaks, they are easy to replace/repair.

7. late post in case anyone still following

   https://mmlafleur.com/collections/giving-tuesday?utm_campaign=Mass%20Marketing%20-%20Giving%20Tuesday%202021%2F%20Bottomless%20Closet%20-%20Unconverted&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=189340243&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–oBAt0cZZiypwvEw5TpEFc1lqUesQ-agcWZLgseHe-50H5OxLGbuOUDNeYG9GyeYvzD_m5hqsPuIHLnbkhu3iSJ4UeJA&utm_content=189340243&utm_source=hs_email

   1. Gross, way to completely miss the point of Giving Tuesday, M.M. La Fleur. It’s not about buying stuff for yourself.

      1. And what “item” are they donating if I buy a $350 sweater for myself? This is definitely not in the spirit of the day. But maybe I am just annoyed that MML just issued a credit for my return instead of a refund.

   2. I mean, would you rather they had done nothing at all? This seems fine to me. It’s OK to have giving be ancillary to receiving—it’s still better than pure receiving.

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