THAT SPECIAL TOUCH. Whether for your lakeplace or as a gift, here's a perfect and affordable idea. You can order a coaster, glassware, journals, or playing cards with the outline of your lake on it. Creek's Edge in Rock Creek, MN. (Tele: 320.629.3680) carries a line of these items in the store but also offers them by mail order. The store carries some of these items in the store with certain area lakes already etched onto them. If they don't have your lake yet, you can order it for an additional set-up fee. Creek's Edge Web Page

RICH COFFEE. You, or a guest at your lakeplace, may want some steamed milk for their coffee, or froth in their hot chocolate. Without an espresso machine, you are out of luck, right? Not so! You can buy a milk frother for a fraction of an espresso machine and have gourmet coffee. Both the Brookstone and the William-Sonoma stores carry it for $20, and the Kitchen Collection in the outlet mall in Albertville, MN. (Telephone: 763.497.5797) carries it for $14.99. When at the lake, you have to sometimes improvise, and we have found that the frother can make dry creamers taste rich and fresh in coffee. Dry hot chocolate mix froths to a rich, creamy hot chocolate that tastes like you have been to the local coffee shop. At William-Sonoma it is called Bonjour Primo Frother. Brookstone's product is called "Café Milk Frother."