Holiday shopping can be stressful, sure,

Holiday shopping can be stressful, sure, but it also can be playful. Just remember: One size doesn’t fit all, so food is usually a safe bet. (And food is probably one of the easiest gifts to grab at the last minute.)

Where to start? Here’s a food-centric list made with some of our favorite eaters in mind.

1. The koodie

Food-trends analyst Phil Lempert has coined a term for all those kids watching Julia Child reruns. Call them “koodies,” as in kid foodies, or the next generation of sophisticated palates. “There’s a new kid in town, and instead of the same old chicken nuggets and french fries, this kid wants sushi, pad Thai or smoked salmon in their Happy Meal,” Lempert writes on supermarketguru.com.

Have a koodie in your own life? Consider a local class where a youngster can learn the ins and outs of what might be his or her favorite food of all: candy.

Ah! Some Chocolates, 100 East Overbrook Road in Shavertown, offers an ongoing, rotating series of classes on everything from decorating cupcakes to dipping chocolates.

Chocolatier Mary Hepner says the classes are quite popular with youngsters, but adults enjoy them as well. (Wine-pairing classes also appeal to adults.) She suggests just calling (674-0178) to see what’s next on the schedule. A gift certificate can cover the cost of a session of choice.

2. Julia Child wannabe

The runaway success of “Julie & Julia” starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams has made cooking classes with a French theme hot commodities. Since the movie’s release in August, cooking teacher and cookbook author Karen Adler of Kansas City, Mo., has taught almost a dozen classes. “Beef Bourguignon has really caught everyone’s attention,” Adler says.

Northeastern Pennsylvanians, however, might not be as keen on French cooking as they are on, say, Italian or homespun basics.

You can send your loved one to cooking school at Fire and Ice on Toby Creek in Trucksville, where Chef Gary Edwards, a co-owner, will teach his next class on Jan. 12. A gift certificate would need to cover the $49.95 fee per person plus tax and tip, and that includes a four-course meal. Call 696-3580.

If you’re not sure the foodie in your life is up for a class, give the gift of Julia at home. “Julie & Julia” has landed on the small screen and the DVD and Blu-ray special-features rock. Besides the usual behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes, your foodies can take a cinematic tour of Child’s kitchen, watch cooking lessons by Child and Jacques Pepin and enjoy the nostalgic reveries of Child’s family and friends. ($28.96 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray.)

3. Wine, just in time

A great bottle is another great bet. The best gift you can give your wine-lover (besides a lifetime supply of first-growth Bordeaux) is the hands-on experience of crushing grapes and turning them into nectar. If you have $5,700, help them create their own barrel of wine with industry veterans at Crushpad, a custom crush and winemaking facility in San Francisco. Or, for $79.99, try the Fusebox, a blending kit that includes all the wine and materials necessary to make up to eight wine blends. Order another case of your signature blend for $336 per case. www.crushpadwine.com.

To keep it local, try Beer Solutions on Blackman Street in Wilkes-Barre, which also sells wine- and beer-making supplies. You also, of course, can head to your local liquor store and ask for recommendations or a rundown of best-sellers.

A popular holiday seller in Northeastern Pennsylvania, we’re told, is Cranberry Blush by Sorrenti, out of Cherry Valley Vineyards. It was introduced at Thanksgiving in 2003 and became Cherry Valley’s No. 1 seller the following year. Local Wine & Spirits Shoppes, such as the one inside Schiel’s Market in Wilkes-Barre, which offers those coveted Sunday hours, carry the wine for between $9 and $11.49 per bottle.

Or visit a tried-and-true local winery and pick up a truly local gift. One of the closest to Wilkes-Barre is the Bartolai Winery on Route 92 and Coolidge Avenue in Harding. You can grab a best-selling bottle, an assortment of Italian specialty foods or accessories or even some wine-themed clothing for a loved one or a pet. Gift baskets and gift certificates are available as well. The winery is open by appointment on Mondays and Tuesdays, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and from 1-8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. (For working folk, those hours are as refreshing as the vino!) Call 570-388-VINO (8466) or visit www.bartolaiwinery.com.

4. Bring on the bacon

Bacon is hot. Sizzling hot. So a fashionable bacon gift might indeed knock someone’s socks off. How about a statuette of the patron saint of bacon for your dashboard? Yes, there is a patron saint of bacon!

St. Anthony the Abbot was heralded as a modest and courteous man known for healing skin diseases and inflammations. He is often depicted with a pig because pork fat was used as a skin treatment. Think we’re kidding? Google “St. Anthony Patron of Bacon” and see what interesting gifts pop up. Or maybe pick up a St. Anthony statuette – Crossroads Pharmacy & Gifts on the Sans Souci Parkway sells saint figurines, as do The Guild Studios – and wrap him with a jar of gourmet bacon bits and an explanation. You’ll have to be a hit.

5. Oil, oil!

Nudo, a family-run cooperative of olive groves in the Marche region of Italy, is offering the chance to “adopt” a tree and support a local farm family. The return: an adoption certificate, four 500-milliliter tins of first cold-press extra-virgin olive oil from the tree in spring and another three 250-milliliter tins of infused olive oil in the fall.

A little too big of a deal for you? How about a really good bottle of olive oil, which is readily available and universally pleasing? The Bartolai Winery (see wine entry below for more info) in Harding sells a line of L’acropoli di Puglia olive oils, derived from hand-picked coratina olives harvested whole and fresh at maturation.

Bottles come in various sizes and range from $9.95 for 375 milliliters to $85.95 for 5 liters.

Of course, if you don’t make it to an actual winery, you can always pluck the nicest bottle of olive oil off a grocer’s shelves and tie it up with a lovely bow.

6. Now you’re cooking

Family cookbooks aren’t exactly new, but there’s no reason that homespun creation can’t be a gorgeous, glossy wonder, too. Upload your favorite recipes to Berkeley, Calif.-based TasteBook ( www.TasteBook.com), and you can dip into their Bon Appetit, Gourmet and Epicurious.com. recipe archives too. The finished, professionally bound book runs $19.95-$34.95, depending on size. Use Blurb ( www.Blurb.com) and you can adorn every page with Flickr, iPhoto and Smugmug images as well as recipes. A 7x7 book runs $12.95 and up.

You also can give the gift of a cooking adventure. Consider a gift certificate for The Dinner A’Fare at the Shoppes at Montage. Your loved one can do some shopping, then spend two hours making 12 nearly ready-to-eat meals to take home to his or her family. Call 344-5400.

7. Jam jars

Baking, canning or making your gifts this year? Order swanky, self-adhesive, personalized labels (20 for $25) from www.felixdoolittle.com. Or make your own with templates from www.marthastewart.com. (look in the craft section under “templates and clip art”).

Looking for something to put in the jars? Don’t overlook local churches and civic organizations, which sell a host of homemade goodies year round. Time is of the essence now, but you might still be able to place an order for Christmas cookies and nut and poppyseed rolls from the Society of St. Michael’s, which is distributing from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. tomorrow at Church and Winter streets in Old Forge. Call 562-3965, 586-2632, 457-9280 or 457-2875 to see if you can score anything at this, the 11th hour.

Pilgrim Congregational Church in Plymouth also is selling homemade candies. A half-pound box of peanut-butter or coconut cream cups costs $6 and can be ordered by calling 779-2158.

Contributors to this report were Jill Wendholt Silva and Jackie Burrell of McClatchy-Tribune Newspapers and Sandra Snyder of the Times Leader.