Holiday Gift Ideas with Interior Designer Jennifer Boyd | Debra Dobbs Podcast Episode 1

Hello. Welcome to— well, we haven't come up with a name yet. That's where you can come in with some help. But let's call it my first podcast. And I've named it as of today, Dishin' with Debra. Could need some work. And I'm thrilled to say that I have one of my not only dear friends, but she's also designer to the stars and many of my clients. And we have been talking about What do we love about the holidays? And especially, what do we love gifting at the holidays? So we have come together with our 5 favorite gifts for friends and family. Take it away, Jen.

Hi. Um, yes, so I came today bearing a gift for my dear friend Debra Dobbs, and it happens to contain one of my favorite things. Um, I not only bought one of these for myself, and I will explain why, but I now put them in clients' homes since I found this fabulous designer. So I am going to have Debra open it. I love opening presents. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, my friend.

All right. Oh my God, it's wrapped so beautifully. My presents do not look quite so.

Oh, her present looks beautiful.

Oh, Stella, you want to dig in, don't you? Oh, okay, I'll read that loud. Okay. Your love of both pink and food lead me to this. One of my fave things for a dear friend. Jen Boyd, heart, heart, heart. With love and gratitude for your friendship. Baby. And oh, we've got— well, handmade. I can tell it's handmade with love in this woman's Montreal-based pottery studio. Oh, it is pink!

Oh my gosh, pink and gold.

Oh, there we go. Oh my gosh, it's beautiful.

How beautiful is that? There we go. So I got you— this is an olive— this is an olive cruet by Julie Duguay. She's based out of Montreal, Canada, and does absolutely beautiful ceramic work. Everything's handmade. One thing I really love about this bottle is, um, it's— first of all, it's opaque. It's opaque. So, you know, olive oil degrades when it's exposed to light. And a lot of the ones you'll see out there are clear glass. So if you have it sitting on your countertop, it's not good for the olive oil. So I looked for an opaque one. And then, I mean, I can't, like, look at the thumbprint, the little thumbprint that makes you grip it perfectly. It pours perfectly. And then there's a second one in there for Debra. And Julie does a two-line version and a single-line version. So that should be the double line so that you could differentiate your oils. So if you wanna put one with avocado oil, one with olive oil, then you know which is which. And it's a cream.

Yeah, but there's a story behind the one that you—

That I did have. Had. I had. But I searched long and hard 'cause this is sitting on my countertop. I want it to be beautiful. I want it to be a piece of art. And I cook a lot and as does Debra. So this is why one of my favorite things are the olive croûtes by Julie on Etsy, found on Etsy.

Reach out if you want information where to purchase these. I will tell you that I bought two after Jen introduced me to these to give as client gifts, and well, one for a client, one for a friend that both use olive oil 5 times a day and She, Julie, promised that I would have them before Christmas. They came 3 days ago.

And she's amazing. You can email her about, you know, questions or customization. Like, I wanted the pair and I said I wanted a single line and a double line, and she made an accommodation right away. So she's amazing. Favorite things, first one.

All right, well, on that note, I am giving over a very special gift that's— and to me, the most special gifts are the things that you have for yourself that you want to share with your very favorite people. So something's wrapped, but this is a hand-blown glass ornament, which, because I try to pretend that I'm not really that sentimental about Christmas, which is not true, I've inscribed "Bah humbug" on this ornament. This ornament is one of many that I have that were shipped to me by my brother and sister-in-law from the Czech Republic, and they are all hand-blown glass ornaments with this flocking that is also hand-applied, and they're just, they're so beautiful and so delicate. So, and they've made their way across the ocean.

Oh, it's so beautiful. Thank you. And Debra says she's not a good gift wrapper. Look at this, it's beautiful, complete with the Dobbs logo paper, which is amazing. All right, well, I want to make sure I don't break this ornament. We have Debra's, um, furry friend in the mix with us here today.

Hi, Stella!

Stella is here. And then I—

and you are correct, that is— so my sister-in-law designed that wrapping paper.

Beautiful. Sunday Suppers. Uh, and I've heard so much about this book, and I've attended a Sunday supper at Debra's house. So this is very kind. Thank you so much.

There's an inscription if you would like to read it.

I of course will.

One of my favorite cookbooks to give to everyone that I love and that my daughter and I use quite often when we are preparing Sunday supper.

It says, "My most cherished memories are the many Sunday suppers with friends and family." at Chez Dobbs. With love, Debra. So kind. And I have had the opportunity to be here to enjoy that, so I hope to have many more Sunday suppers with you, my friend. Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, so this is by Karen Mordecai.

Mordecai.

Mordecai. And Karen Mordecai, Sunday Suppers.

And again, reach out for resources on how to if someone would like to buy that book. I purchased 30 of them last week from Jason Home, which is in Lincoln Park. Lots of beautiful gifts, and this happens to be a book they've had year after year. But again, reach out and we can send you the resources to get these gifts.

Thank you, Debra.

All right.

I'm gonna lean that guy back up here so everyone can see it.

Okay, so why don't I introduce my little, octopus dish. Okay, so I'm totally into octopus, or octopuses, which I've been told is the correct plural for octopus. This dish happens to be filled with a salt that my daughter and I love to make, and we make this every week or two, mostly because we have friends and clients that say, "Hey, could I come by and pick up some of that herb salt you make?" So we make this wonderful herb salt. This happens to be a smoked version of the herb salt, which we just created last week and love. And I think it looks so much better in this dish 'cause of the little coloring. But this is the most beautiful octopus in brass. And then the dish is a seashell dish. So I have one in my bathroom for soap, and then I have 3 that I can interchange with various herbs and spices and salts. Sometimes I'll put butter and I'll use this as a serving dish at the table, or just sitting on my island. And I'm a bread and butter fanatic. And then I can take a little salt, sprinkle it on the top, and that's my lunch with a tomato or so, cucumber or something. So there you go. This was purchased from CB2, one of my very favorite stores. Fabulous stuff going on right now for Christmas gifts, by the way. They've got, if you're into music, rock and roll, they've got an amazing coffee table book about the best albums.

Cool.

So there you go. All right, you're up.

Okay. So one of my other favorite things is an Australian brand, Aesop.

She's married to an Australian.

Yeah, I'm not biased, but I am married to an Australian gentleman. However, their products are amazing. They smell beautiful. I'm pretty averse to really strong florals and smells and scents like that. Their scents are pretty, are ones that I can tolerate and they don't have those really sweet, koinly sweet scents. They're very herbaceous or, you know, sandalwoods and things like that. This hand cream not only is amazing as far as performance and keeping your hands moisturized, especially during our brutally dry winters, but it smells fantastic. So I put it on at night and literally like inhale my hands before I go to bed and I give it to pretty much everyone I know. I think I gave this to Debra Dobbs.

Give it over, I want to try it.

I think I gave it to you last year. You did?

You did.

So Aesop Resurrection Hand Cream in the pink tube, the pink metal tube. Amazing product. Wonderful gift. Put one on your nightstand. Oh, it's the best. It's the best.

Forgot how much I love this.

Another favorite thing, not home related, just some personal care that we all need.

Well, you have another favorite thing that—

I do.

It was a little surprise. I wasn't expecting.

Yeah.

That I think you should present because I am all over getting the oversized version of this favorite thing.

So behind us, sitting on Debra's beautiful mantle is a mud cloth pillow. So this is one of mine actually, but I do put them in several clients' homes. And they are handmade. They're traditional African textile. So they originated in West Africa, although they are made all over Africa. And the different symbols and things that are painted on them are significant to different tribes. And different groups there. So that's sort of the history of it, but they basically, you know, stitch these together. So you can see this is made from several pieces, and then they're usually natural dyes. So you never see any like really odd colors, 'cause the dye that they use for the textiles are made of leaves and sticks and berries and things like that, that they dry, they dye them with and then let them dry. And then typically, The designs on them is applied with mud and like a resin of some kind that obviously won't wash away with water. So they're beautiful. They come in all gorgeous colors. This one's this like kind of terracotta camel color that I think works really well with blues and turquoises and blacks and whites.

And with the little—

And with this. I mean, Debra wants to keep this pillow here. So mud cloth pillows, you can get them at several, um, you know, several vendors and several places sell them. But, um, this particular one is from, um, from an Etsy shop. So, um, we'll have the details, um, at the end of the podcast for this.

Love supporting Etsy, by the way.

Yeah, but Etsy is, is wonderful. It's really a bunch of, you know, craftsmen and women that, um, have this, this place that they could sell, um, sell all their crafts from all over the world. So that's, by the way, these were ordered through Etsy. Those were ordered through Etsy because I honestly couldn't find one through major retailers and a lot of the sources that I have access to. I found them on Etsy.

So this is a way to support local or not so local but independent businesses that are creating beautiful things in their—

Yeah, either they can't or don't want to have a brick and mortar shop. They want to get their products and their designs out into the world. And I mean, you know, just even the history of mudcloth is pretty cool and interesting. And it does add texture, I think, to a room. And it, you know, I really like to make rooms feel more rich with pieces that don't all look new or don't look like they're all from a store or out of a catalog. And I really think, you know, pieces like this, add that kind of texture and richness.

So we have one last item, which was not intended— it's not even one of our favorite things, because Jen and, by the way, our fabulous guy behind the camera, Pablo, were just introduced to this. So I'm going to do a little plug. This is a game called Controversy that has been created over the last almost 2 years. My daughter, me, our besties, mom, dad, the 3 kids, my brother, my sister-in-law, and our best family, one of our dearest family friends, Alana. So a lot went into this. It's a card game. We are beta testing the game now. So we have actually had these beautiful packages made. There's a logo. Company name is Roast Beef Games. If anyone's interested, reach out because we are looking for beta testers, although we seem to have like a lot of people ready to go. So I pulled these out at the last minute to give one to Pablo and one to Jen.

Thank you.

Whose husband is, oh, I don't like to play cards, but this is a card game, so.

Exciting. I was just telling Debra that I had to reschedule a game night with some friends, so. This will show up at the rescheduled event. I'm really excited about that.

So our first fireside chat, fire, fire, shallot dip. Oh yeah, we get to dig in the potato chips.

I know.

And by the way, best appetizer ever if you're having a dinner party, Julia Child champagne, potato chips and dip. There you go. And I think Anna Gartner, but we'll have to check on her favorite. So thank you for joining. Don't forget to weigh in about like maybe a suggestion for the name of our—

of Debra's— Debra's Dutch groups.

Thank you so much.

Bye. Bye.