Breakfast Gift Baskets – Memorial Day Special Tribute to Honor Soldiers and Grandparents


Why Grandparents? – Breakfast Gift Baskets Explains Why:

Grandma was an amazing cook.  She was from of a generation who cooked a minimum 5 course meal, no matter what.  She could turn potatoes and carrots and a tomato into something amazing.  She and Grandpa are gone now and Breakfast Gift Baskets would like to dedicate this in honor of their memory and the solders who served our country – Past and Present.

A Breakfast gift Basket from Grandma was the kind of gift basket that was loaded to the top with every single thing you can imagine – Homemade biscuits, pancakes, syrup, coffee, special cream and honey for your coffee or tea, gravy, two or three meat choices,  fruit, and some sort of vegetable, home fried potatoes, juice and something sweet to top it all off.  You would think she and grandpa weighed several hundred pounds each, but that's just not true.  They were active farmers and ran three businesses, so they were really lean and fit.

Grandma cooked for everyone.  Whenever she made  a meal, she made enough to feed at least three other people besides the people she knew who were coming.  She always said that, . . . "you never know when you are going to have company!"  Her meals were famous – they never lacked for company.  She also cooked the meals for a logging camp  grandpa owned and operated and she cooked enough food for 30 hungry men every week for years.  Those men and their families often stopped at the house on their time off to visit – Always at dinner-time!

She would get out the great big kettles on Sunday to cook on and the plastic buckets to load it up in to carry the food in the trunk of her car out to the camp.  I used to hang out in the kitchen trying to figure out how she made things.  When I asked her questions she always told me, "oh, just a pinch of this, a rind of that, a bushel of something else,"  and measurements were in terms of fruit, . .  "about as much as a medium apple," she would tell me before she pushed me out of the kitchen to play outside.  She was more interested in my not losing any kid time outside then she was in my learning how to cook.  Grandpa was the same way – He wanted to play catch more often then he wanted to help us learn to count.

After nearly 25 years since they have been gone, I did learn how to cook, but it wasn't until recently that I bothered to learn what all those interesting measurements were that Grandma shared with me.

Good Food Measurements For Breakfast Gift Baskets From Grandma:

• A pinch = 1/8 teaspoon or less
• 3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon
• 4 Tablespoons = 1/4 Cup
• 8 Tablespoons = 1/2 Cup
• 12 Tablespoons = 3/4 Cup
• 16 Tablespoons = 1 Cup
• 2 Cups = 1 Pint
• 4 Cups = 1 Quart
• 4 Quarts = 1 Gallon
• 8 Quarts = 1 Peck
• 4 Peck = 1 Bushel
• 16 ounces = 1 Pound
• 32 Ounces = 1 Quart
• 1 oz. Liquid = 2 Tablespoons
• 8 oz. Liquid = 1 Cup
• 1 Medium Apple = 1 Cup
• 1 Mashed Banana = 1/3 Cup
• 1 Slice Bread = 1/4 Cup Crumbs
• 1 Chocolate Square = 1 Ounce
• 14 Graham Cracker Squares = 1 Cup
• 1 Medium Lemon = 3 Tablespoons Juice
• 1 Medium Onion = 1/2 Cup
• 1 Cup uncooked Rice = 3 Cups Cooked Rice
• 1 Lb. Brown Sugar = 2 1/2 Cups
• 22 Vanilla Wafers = 1 Cup Crumbs (and the best banana-wafer, vanilla pudding pie crust you could imagine!)

Fresh eggs, milk, butter, meat, vegetables, fruit – Everything home grown and home-canned.  That's how we ate growing up whenever we were with our grandparents.  Helping grandma pick the fruits and vegetables and getting the food prepped for canning.  Tending to the farm – everything from herding cattle, to feeding dogs and cats and driving the hay bale truck while it was being loaded – that's what we did to help Grandpa.

No, they weren't in the military, but their house was often 'home base' for military wives, soldiers needing some kind of work to get through on until they could get an education, or waiting for a wheelchair or a plane ticket to go home – It didn't matter if they needed a meal, a job, a blanket, medicine for themselves or their children, or a bed to sleep in, they could always go to my grandparents house to get it.  That's why they are my heroes – my soldiers in the trench.

For those special people in your life who have passed on.

For those men and women who have served our country and who didn't come back home, . . .

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” -Arthur Ash

Breakfast  Gift Baskets Just aren't the same without those two laughing and chasing each other around the kitchen, but they inspired cooking legends and we share their good food measurements with you in honor of them and of our soldiers – Past and present – for Breakfast Gift Baskets Memorial Day.

I may not agree about decisions to send troops to places like Afghanistan, but at the end of the day, I know that heroes rise amidst chaos and terror in war. Americas and Canadians are extremely grateful and honored to have such heroes fight for our country. RIP to all who have died in the process of making our country a better country. And all my respects to those who are still serving.

You have the right to disagree with my sentiments.  It is a right that people who do not know you died to protect for you.  So, if you feel compelled to burn the flag and dishonor the people who serve in the armed forces then I hope that you will wrap yourself in it before you strike the match.