Editors’ Picks: What We’re Giving Mom

Our team spills their personal picks for Mother’s Day.

For the Baker: Tomnuk Rolling Pin

I think there’s always a tiny bit of projection when I’m buying gifts—presents that I’d love to get, too—but I know one of Edmonton designer Jordan Tomnuk’s French rolling pins ($89) would make both me and my mom happy. The fine walnut roller is finished in beeswax, and it’s inset with a small brass hanging so that its beauty isn’t stashed away in a drawer. Plus, you know, it comes with the bonus of future baked goods. —Anicka Quin, Editor-in-Chief 

(Photo: artsclub.com.)

For Some Quality Time: Dinner and a Show

My mom just spent a year doing a serious purge as she prepped to downsize from our family home to a condo to call her own, so the last thing she wants is more stuff (and regardless, you can only give someone so many pretty candles and murder mysteries in one lifetime). Luckily, mom doesn’t live too far away, so a night out together is a more-than-manageable gift: after all, who doesn’t like a good old fashioned dinner-and-a-show? I’m thinking we’ll grab a glass of wine and catch Billy Elliot at the Stanley Theatre. It’s quality time (and Elton John!), with no storage space required. —Stacey McLachlan, Senior Editor 

For the Imbiber: A You-Deserve-It Scotch

I’m sure my mother—even though she was born a McLaughlin— didn’t out as a Scotch drinker. But every day my Dad would come home and pour himself one and am sure at some juncture she gamely joined him in his end-of-day ritual. For my entire youth my folks drank Bells—a workmanlike blended Scotch that was nothing if not consistent. And even as they grew older, they generally stuck with it in a mixture of habit and frugality utterly lost on my generation who upgrades Scotch (and car and house) the second we can afford to.

But somewhere along the way someone gifted my dad a bottle of Highland Park, the amazing single malt from the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland—and it was love at first drop. The 12-year-old version has long replaced Bells as the house pour with them, but the hint of frugality remains in that they only go for an older bottle on special occasions. Mother’s Day is a special occasion, so for all those years of slogging it though the Bells, she deserves a bottle of Highland Park 21—a truly exquisite malt full of spice and fruit and just the perfect dollop of smoke. And knowing her, the bottle will last the next three Mother’s Days. —Neal McLennan, Food and Travel Editor

For the Mom Who’s a Farm Girl at Heart: Rustic-Chic Accessories

Some of my favourite memories spent with my mom centre around the tackle shop. I grew up on a hobby farm for boarding horses, and though my mother—a lifelong lover of Black Beauty and friends—never passed on her riding skills to me, I did inherit her affinity for the sweet scent of oats, hay bales and leather saddles. I could get her a horse figurine-something, but to keep her house from turning into a shrine for steeds, I want to go with something more loosely on-theme. For that subtle touch of equestrian, I’m currently torn between these worn-in, hand-painted leather cushions from Avo (a Brooklyn-based art and design studio), or this leather-strap, store-anything-in-it jar by Holmegaard (both available at Provide in Vancouver). —Julia Dilworth, Staff Writer 

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