The holidays are upon us.  If your friends or family love food as much as we do, you might want to consider some really cool gift options that everyone will want to eat up.  Takeaway food contributor Kathy Gunst says there are plenty of reasonably priced kitchen gadgets and ways to spice up your friend's relationship to food, without breaking the bank this holiday season.

Click through to read Kathy's great gift ideas, and check out the recipe for her sister Andrea's Chocolate-Dipped Butter Crunch (which also makes a great homemade holiday gift!)

It's the fall, which means one thing to food lovers: mushroom season. In our weekly food segment, we get out of the kitchen and into the forest with Kathy Gunst, food writer and author of "Stonewall Kitchen Breakfast," and Rob Evans, chef at Hugo's restaurant in Portland, Me., and winner of the 2009 James Beard Award. They tell us about their experience foraging for wild mushrooms in the wilds of Maine and how to use those 'flowers of fall' – or their supermarket equivalents – in the kitchen. (Click through for recipes, including Chef Evans' Matsutake Mushroom Risotto.)

For many of us, saying 'so long' to summer is not an easy thing. But there is one way to capture the sunny season in a bottle – or a jar, at least. With the abundance of wonderful fruits and vegetables that are bursting out of our gardens and farmers' markets, canning offers a way to eat summer tomatoes in the dead of winter. We speak to Takeaway food contributor Kathy Gunst, author of "Stonewall Kitchen Breakfast" and "Stonewall Kitchen Winter Celebrations." We also talk to John Forti, curator of historic landscapes at the Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Click through for a recipe for Kathy Gunst's roasted tomato sauce

California wines have become as popular and sophisticated as French wines. Now it seems American cheese makers are aiming for the same success and stature. On this morning’s menu The Takeaway talks cheese, specifically the varietals made in the USA. We are joined by food contributor Kathy Gunst and Liz Thorpe. Liz is the vice president of Murray's Cheese in New York and author of the new book, The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table.

In New Orleans, the city's famed Jazz & Heritage Festival is underway. And of course, most people go for the music. But there's another side to JazzFest: the food. The Takeaway is joined by Kathy Gunst, a food writer and radio producer who did some digging into Louisiana's favorite dishes, from gumbo to jambalaya to ya ka mein.