When contacted to review a Hickory Farms gift basket, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. Who doesn't love Hickory Farms gift baskets? They're a holiday institution! There are few other gifts which are as universally well received as one of their baskets. They're like the anti-fruitcake. Everyone hates fruitcake, but everyone loves Hickory Farms. The only complaint I've ever heard over the years is that people always want more!

This is my Orchard's Bounty Gift Basket with the cellophane removed. The one and only thing that is unique to my review sample is the inclusion of a 4GB USB thumb-drive in the white box on the right containing company and product information. (Photographing the basket with our wooden floor as the background was just stupid, it looks horrible.)

This is the official Hickory Farms promotional shot for the Orchard's Bounty Gift Basket.

This is my own shot of the contents of the Orchard's Bounty Gift Basket, minus the basket of course. I like my shot better, but then I'm incredibly biased. The fruit was aesthetically flawless in quality. You could ponder for hours over your local market's fruit bins and not pick out better.

The basket contains:

• 2 "Signature" Beef Summer Sausages (5 oz.)
• 1 "Signature" Farmhouse Cheddar (4 oz.)
• 2 Crown Comice Pears
• 2 Red D'Anjou Pears
• 3 Fuji Apples
• 5 Mandarin Oranges
• 1 Berry Nut Bounty (4 oz.)
• 1 Olive Oil & Rosemary Crackers (1.5 oz.)
• 1 Hand made in the USA Peterboro Basket

After church today, we all enjoyed our fresh to the door bounty all cut up and ready for the five of us to graze on for lunch! Everything was incredible. The sausage and cheese naturally compliment each other but when combined with the variety of fresh fruit...it was a palate party sensation.

We particularly liked the two types of pears. The Crown Comice pears were delicious but the Red D'Anjou pears had twice the pear flavor! I don't think I had every tasted them before. We had a great time blindly taste testing pieces of each but it was easy to pick out the more flavorful Red D'Anjou.

The sausage, the cheese, the crackers, the pears, the apples, the oranges; Mary, all three boys and I loved everything!

In addition to the terrific food, you get a high quality, hand made in the USA basket. We've got a dozen or more Longaberger baskets around the house and, while I'm no basket expert, I can't tell any difference in quality between the Hickory Farms Peterboro basket and our Longabergers.

Finally, all Hickory Farms gift baskets can be ordered online or by telephone with expedited $3 dollar/3 day shipping.

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Hickory Farms and received a product sample to facilitate my review.