The 4th of July Gift Basket

These are all meant to be consumed, not exploded

If you're constantly on edge this time of year, you shouldn't be. It's the middle of summer, and the days are long and should be punctuated with cold beer or lemonade. However, the constant, piercing clap of firecrackers sounding, often at any given moment, can make you a bit tense. Here's some hints on how to put the focus on brews and barbecue instead of cherry bombs and finger blisters.

We don't think the Fourth of July should be turned into a standard gift giving holiday the likes of Christmas or Valentine's Day, but a gift basket for the Fourth of July will be much appreciated once it's time to grill or pop a cold one. To that end, we suggest a modest basket for your hosts featuring any number of fun, summertime fare.

Don't Tread on These< Commonly, people go for a robust collection of barbecue sauces, barbecue implements, and assorted salty snacks perfect for tiding you over until the grill is hot. This makes sense; hot summers are tempered nicely by sweet and tangy sauces and grilled meats. However, if you've had enough Jell-o salad and stars and stripes cakes, then go for some of our patriotically themed sweet stuff gift baskets. These are generally the same delicious cookies we offer in our other baskets, but packaged in festive 4th of July designs. Some of the cookies, of course, are frosted in red white in blue for some added pizzazz. Add these cookies to classic summer desserts like ice cream or a sundae and you'll be the hit of the party.

The scoop on the sauce

But back to our savory sauces and salty goodness. Everybody who cooks knows that few things add zing to a barbecue sauce like beers or whiskey. So you could do this yourself, and tend to your homemade sauce in the kitchen while everyone plays Frisbee, croquet and the like, or you could purchase a collection of masterfully seasoned and prepared sauces available here. Our summertime gift baskets often feature marinades, mustards, horseradish, salsa, pretzels, even some coffee. The nice thing about these 4th of July gift baskets is that often they'll prevent return trips to the store when something is inevitably forgotten. Just buy a sufficiently large chunk of meat and some chips, you're good to go.