Riley Houser's Blog

I’m often overwhelmed with the plethora of shiny, and normally quite costly, tools and other manly pieces of machinery that are advertised as being the perfect gift for your dad on father’s day, so I lean towards a few more unconventional ideas. Showing dad you care is a lot easier than you may think and it doesn’t have to involve spending a lot of money, just some time out of your day. For instance preparing your father’s coffee just the way he likes it and then helping him take care of those little projects he never has time to get to around the house would say a lot.

This requires knowing just what he likes, the subtleties of his favorite style -- could be a dark or light roast, creamy or black, sweet or bitter, frothy or iced. It can be a difficult thing to get right, but if you can pull that off, delivered to him in his favorite mug without him saying so much as a word, he’ll be quite pleasantly surprised. And even more so when you suggest tackling the unfinished stone wall together that your mother requested around the garden ages ago. Though that only starts after you’ve all enjoyed the breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon you knew he’d love, of course.

It’s hard to show just how much you care and the effort you’re willing to put forth on their behalf by simply buying them something, even if it is something that you know they’ll love. As the people that have raised and cared for us all our lives our parents deserve to understand just how much we appreciate everything they’ve done. Treat your father better this year than ever before, it can never be too much. And it all starts by waking up to the smell of coffee and bacon wafting into their room.

If you need help making that special cup of coffee we’ve enlisted some help for you in our Deal of the Week.

And here’s a sampling of some of the good recipes from our blog that you could treat them to:

• Wild Mountain Blueberry Pound Cake
• Fair Trade Island Coconut Cookies
• Fair Trade Coffee Marinated Steak