Gift Idea: Opt for an Experience

If one of the Father's Day gift ideas I suggested last week wasn't for you, I understand.
(though umm, how is a leather beer leg holster not the coolest in the universe?! haha).

Instead of giving an object this Father's Day or for an upcoming birthday of someone special, what about giving them the best gift of all: an experience!

Here's some "entry-level" (still awesome) experience-type gifts:
1. dinner at an awesome place you would normally never hit up, be it far or pricey (or both)
2. visit to a theme park or similar
3. tix to a concert or sports game (and if you go, enjoy it.. even if you're really do not!)
3. mini weekend vacay, or an overnight staycation near your place

Want to kick it up a notch?
There's a million things you can do depending on the person's passion/hobbies... since we love anything food related, wanted to share with you two things I've done. Hope it generates some ideas for you!

To celebrate my husband's major accomplishment of earning his JD and MBA (yay!),
I set up an experience gift we still talk about years later.
There was a sushi restaurant with a chef named Hook near the hubs law school that we constantly frequented. We loved it there. Casual, no frills, fresh sushi.

So, what did I get my man for his big day?
A private lesson for two with our favorite sushi chef, the Hook-ster!
We made all this!

This was the one -- and only -- time in our lives that we had so much sushi that we had to call friends to come over to help us eat it! Note: we do not share sushi. Better not to ask. :)

It was one of the coolest experiences EVER and for less than $200, if I recall correctly.
TIP: just because someone doesn't advertise
for their services in a new way, doesn't mean they're not available. ASK!
Hook didn't do sushi lessons so I approached him about doing so and then negotiated the price. It was so easy for him to do the private lesson for a few hours mid-afternoon while the restaurant was closed.
To save costs, consider getting a group together for a semi-private lesson.


Another experience?
For one of A's birthday's, I coordinated for a local chef to teach us how to cook an Asian-inspired
meal in our home. Amazing!
Wanted someone to teach us with our appliances, pots and pans, etc., so we could replicate it  later on.

Sidebar lesson learned:
it's much easier/more fun to cook when you have a chef to prep everything (a la Food Network!)...
and clean up when you're done.

Semi-embarrassed by this photo for my home: we had just moved into this place. It was all passed-down furniture. Nothing is the same.
OK, lie: the walls are still blue.  Focus on our yum food and happy faces.

Tip: ask a local reporter (in this instance, I reached out to the then-Palm Beach Post food editor,
Jan Norris - who ps: now has an awesome food blog that's such a great resource)
for recommendations for local chefs who could do this for me.

Reporters are often your most-in-the-know locals. Jan was so helpful, giving me insight about this 'freelance' chef who came to our home for a few hours, taught us and left us with recipes and a sense that we could do this on our own. To this day, we delight in his sunamono salad (cucumber salad)
- will have to post that soon!
We planned to have him back for a BBQ cooking night with friends, however he unfortunately moved to California. How rude of him when we were so stoked about our BBQ party! hah.


Well, that's all I have for you today. And, wheh... I'm tired. It took me a crazy long time to find these photos. Thank you dotphoto albums that I created a gazillion years ago!
Happy Wednesday, my smartie gorgeous gals.