Top Five Food and Drink Gifts We Will Miss from SkyMall

SkyMall is filing for bankruptcy, which means what the hell are we all gonna do during flights to keep ourselves entertained when we can't use our electronics? (Not talk to other people, please dear god, no!) It's going to be especially mournful for foodies, who skimmed the catalog pages hoping to find the absolute inane perfect gift for non-foodie friends whose lives would be incomplete without an LED-lit wine rack shaped like a baby orangutan. SkyMall's iconic catalog might survive if a buyer can be found, but there's also the possibility that this may be the last chance to buy almost useless quirky wine devices and artsy beer steins on excruciatingly long flights to Des Moines.

Here are the top five food and drink gifts we will miss from SkyMall. The catalogs might go away, but I'm still not talking to row-mates.

See also: The Five Worst Foodie Holiday Gifts for 2014

5) Pierogi Christmas ornaments

One of the classiest things you can do on an airplane ride is order holiday tree ornaments shaped like ethnic snack foods, and SkyMall's shiny, glass, hanging pierogi straddles the line of demarcation between cute and kitschy -- and eye-rollingly preposterous.

At ten bucks a pop, having dangly imitation potato pockets will be missed, probably by the same folks who would spend ten bucks apiece on anything shaped like food, even if it's not actually edible.

4) The inflatable bar

The SkyMall catalog just had to have some college dorm supplies for budding foodies and amateur drinkers; the inflatable bar will certainly be missed by every 22-year-old whose parentals had this pool toy shipped to them.

And really, if the purchasers of these blow-up beer coolers weren't cleaning vomit and empty booze bottles out of them the morning after, it was not being utilized in the manner it was intended the night before.

3) ALL the wine and liquor holders

If there is one thing SkyMall has done well since 1989, it's been to introduce the concept of wacky, tacky, overpriced bar ware to consumers with too much time on their hands and too much money in those same hands. From the classic Italian replica globe bar to the almost unbelievably useless "Chevalier Aerating Wine Glass," the sippy cup wine glass holder to the ritzy-ass wine tote, the ways you could get cranked while toting booze in strange new ways was limited only by basic dignity.

Goodbye, Star Trek-inspired wine decanter. All good things...

For more SkyMall toys we will miss, read on.

2) The European pepper mill One of the things we should all miss from the SkyMall catalog is that new-fangled invention called "the pepper mill." Apparently telling Americans that something is European still works as a clever marketing tool, and adding descriptive poetry to the advertisement for a pepper grinder makes it way more appealing when you are stuck on the tarmac waiting for your pretzels and a cup of margarita mix on ice.

Okay, no one will really miss this. It's just an effin' pepper grinder.

1) The Library Hidey Table

With all the fluff, expensive sea salts and lobster-of-the-month club invites in the SkyMall catalog, it's almost impossible to believe that every once in a while, there's an item that's either beneficial, imaginative, or both. The Nettlestone Library Ensemble -- or "hide-a-table" set -- is both, and it had the distinction of being a three-piece set of compact food-nerd furniture you can't buy at IKEA.

Here's hoping that if SkyMall decides to throw in the towel for good, at least this table and chairs set will go on discount.

---

Follow @CafeWestword