Chelsea Market Baskets Chelsea Market Baskets Chelsea Market 75 ...

For many, the idea of a gift basket does not suggest good things. Invariably tied in with funerals and impersonal corporate gift-giving, behind the yellow cellophane are undesirables disguised as presents by virtue of their baskets and bows. As a kid, I would project my hopes for delectable treats onto the multicolored, foil-wrapped mystery candies that were wedged between greenish oranges and the ubiquitous pineapple. I quickly learned, however, to expect little from those chintzy suckers.

Thus, Gift Baskets: The Later Years. When I started to work in an office, judging by the predictable assortments that would trickle in around Christmas time, one would think that grown-ups liked to eat summer beef salami sticks, trail mix, mustard and cashews.

The people at Chelsea Market Baskets, a business dedicated to the cultivation of the gift basket, have made a respectable go at putting taste?both literal and figurative?first. Owner David Porat, who entered the food business 22 years ago in the chocolate department at Bloomingdale's ("when Godiva was just getting started"), travels to Europe to scout potential food finds for his company's use. Chelsea Market Baskets is currently the importer of 300 products from England, Scotland, France, China and South Africa, and wholesales to 800 gift- basket companies and fine-food purveyors in the U.S.

Far from being a proponent of rabid globalization, Porat is first a devotee of good eating. He hopes that by exposing diverse tastes to his customers, they, too, will join the foodie ranks. "I don't want the product to sit on the shelf and look pretty," says Porat, a gentle middle-aged fellow who punctuates most thoughts with a scrunch of the nose. "I want them to be consumed and enjoyed."

Although the anatomy of the gift baskets here essentially approximates the prototype?crackers, mixed nuts, chocolates, shortbreads and jams?Porat's core group is elite. His chocolate is Leonidas, flown in fresh from Belgium; his shortbread is from the award-winning Shortbread House of Edinburgh; his fruit-juice-sweetened jams are hand-picked from L'Epicurien, a French manufacturer.

In fact, some of Porat's offerings are so uber-gourmet as to border on the absurd?smoked Welsh sea salt or all-natural food coloring, for example. But his eye for camp saves him from entering into fussy Williams-Sonoma territory. Borderline-creepy foil-wrapped Mrs. Clauses, Bloody Mary mix in a drink box and "vintage" penny candy are just a few offbeat touches, as are basket names?Chelsea Evenings, Baby Love, Uncle Joe's 3-Pack, Bubby's Bundle?that unwittingly sound like kinky porn.

"Our gift baskets are a little more masculine than other people's," says Porat. "I don't think they're overly butch, but they're sort of to the point. They show what they're made of. And they're not all covered in ribbons."

Porat's goal is to choose items that can stand alone on their gustatory merits, though he ultimately believes that in gift baskets, synergy is key. "That's kind of the principle that our business is based on," explains Porat. "The sum of the parts is worth more than the parts themselves."

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