Part of the fun of giving a gift is showing the recipient how well you know them. You can do this by tailoring your gift to the recipient’s specific interests or hobbies.

COOKING:

Put together a cooking basket with some stock baking ingredients (salt, pepper, oil, spices, etc.) and some kitschy kitchenware, like novelty salt and pepper shakers that reflect the recipient’s personality. Throw in a popular cookbook, such as Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking or Irma S. Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking for the chef in your life to play around with, and maybe even a cooking-themed DVD like “Julie and Julia,” starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child. The Food Network has also released several of its shows, such as “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” and “Kitchen Classics” that may be of interest to the food guru in your life.

READING:

Pick up a copy of Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die for the recipient, as well as a couple of books from the list to get them started. The list includes page-turners by authors like Chuck Palahniuk, Paul Auster, Joyce Carol Oates, Bret Easton Ellis, Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Tom Wolfe, Maya Angelou, Hunter S. Thompson, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Jack Kerouac.

The gift recipient will enjoy the good literature and the thrill of the challenge. (If you’re not sure which books to get, go for a gift certificate to a book store so they can pick out their own top choices from the list.) You can also throw in a funky bookmark to add a whimsical touch to the gift, or add a journal that they can use to write down favorite quotations, keep track of what they’ve read, or jot down other reading-related notes.

TELEVISION:

Base the gift on the recipient’s favorite show. (This is especially fun and easy now that so much official merchandise is available on network websites.) If your recipient is a fan of “30 Rock,” put together a basket of “30”-themed things: cheese puffs, a “would you rather?” or “marry, boff, kill” game, anything with a peacock on it, and a “TGS with Tracy Jordan” t-shirt, sweatshirt, mug, or mousepad from NBC.com.

Know a “Glee” fan? Get them a portable karaoke machine so they can practice their singing, and help them out by filling in the gaps in their “Glee” soundtrack collection (there are more than six volumes currently available in stores, including soundtracks to the “Rocky Horror”- and Madonna-themed episodes; the Christmas album is due soon). You can also pick up DVDs featuring “Glee” cast members before they joined show choir, such as “Bloody Mary” (featuring Cory Monteith) or “Music and Lyrics” (featuring Matthew Morrison), or the first “Glee” novelization, Glee: The Beginning.

TRAVELING:

Give a map of the U.S. or the world and a box of pushpins, so they can place the pins on the map where they’ve been. It makes cool wall art and charts their accomplishments. Accentuate the gift with travel books specific to a place they frequent or are dying to visit, or a list of must-see places. For a fun, quirky element, throw in a funky luggage tag.

Theme gifts are fun, and tailoring your gift to the recipients’ interests, no matter what they are, is a great way to make a gift personal and meaningful.