Daily Archives: October 25, 2011

An Ode to Gram

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Gram was the grandparent that I knew best. She was always there until last Sunday. She is of course still here in spirit, but it will never be the same.

Not to be a downer though, because that is not what I’m going for on here at all. Gram was not the same for the past year and a half. Every visit, there would be another little piece of her that was goneg.   She would forget many things, and we would become just friendly strangers to her. Deep down, I believe she knew she loved us, she just couldn’t remember how she knew us.

There are so many memories I have of Gram, that will never leave my heart. She was a woman who knew how she was gonna do things. She was very straight forward. Reading her recipes is always interesting if you have never made them with her before. She wasn’t a big fan on the whole instructions concept.

Gram was a wonderful cook and baker. Thankfully she has passed down many of her culinary skills to my mother, who I have gotten to learn from. One of my favorite memories of her was that she would always have this red tin that was always full of yummy goodies. Every time we visited her she would hide it in a new spot and it would be a little game for me and my siblings to find it.

I always loved having sleepovers at her house. It was great, we would have a yummy dinner, of course followed by dessert, then maybe watch a movie or TV, after that I would sleep in one of the bedrooms. This part was always a little iffy, I had the strangest tendency to fall off the bed. Weirdly enough, I would stay asleep after I fell. Gram would then bring me to her room, and I would wake up in the morning to her smell right beside me. If I could bottle up her scent, I totally would. She did not smell like a stinky old person! She had the best smell ever, like a nice soft flowery Dove soap smell. I don’t know how she did it, but I hope I inherit her scent!! ;)

Another favorite memory was when I would go out to lunch with her and my mom. We would often go to Culvers or pick up Wendy’s and have it at her house. Now, I don’t know why these were the two main food choices but they just were. Quite honestly I had no problem with either place’s chicken nuggets or tenders. And they both had delicious ice cream treats to follow. Wendy’s-frosty and Culvers-frozen custard. Gram was always pretty consistent and you knew what to expect. She was someone I loved to visit, and it is going to be so hard to let her go.

Okay, last memory. I promise! For now… anyways this is just kind of a funny one. I remember one day when we went to visit her, she had to practice for her driving test to renew her license. Holy car sickness. I had gone way too many times backwards around a curb with her practicing. There was more backing out of driveways than I had ever thought was possible. And she certainly had the whole parallel parking down. Erm..eventually. I’m not sure if she actually drove that much after she renewed her license, anyways. Thank you for listening and visiting the blog, I hope I didn’t bore you too much with the Gram stories! I just had to let it all out, and I didn’t feel like getting all sappy on here.

I almost forgot!!! The recipe for today is a recipe in honor of Gram.

I’ve made  her coffee cake on here before which is one of my favorites, but I decided to try a new one of hers that I hadn’t made before. These cookies sounded pretty interesting to me. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of them because for some reason oats and chocolate have always seemed like an unlikely combination to me. Boy, was I off!!! These suckers are amazing. Seriously, these have got to be the best looking cookies I’ve ever made. And the taste, well the taste is absolutely insane.These cookies are super delicious, and I cannot wait to make them again! Give them a shot, I promise you won’t regret it.

Cake Cookies

(from the one and only, Gram-miss you so much already)

1 box cake mix (I used Devil’s Food Cake)

6 oz. Chocolate Chips

1/2 cup oatmeal

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Mix all ingredients together in bowl.
  3. Scoop dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes in preheated oven.

(Makes about 46 cookies)

Nutrition Facts: 46 servings, serving size: 1 cookie, calories: 89, Total Fat: 4.6 g.

** What do you think of me adding the nutrition facts? Do you like it or not? I can’t decide whether I should add it with my recipes or not. If I add it should I add anything besides what I’ve got up there? If you ever want to figure out the nutrition facts in one of your recipes it is very easy if you go here.


Random Fact of the Day: Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue. I don’t really understand how people figure this out, unless they’ve got some crazy way of talking to birds nowadays.

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