25 | June | 2006 | BenSpark Family Adventures

I have two photos with groups of people in them that are bonus pictures from today. Since I couldn’t decide between the lunch and dinner photos of the groups of fellow diners I choose a picture of my tasty lunch at Isaac’s Deli today. Isaac’s is a great little deli in and around PA that has a funky theme. Each of the sandwiches are named for birds. The mascot is a pink flamingo and they use Pretzel Rolls. Great big soft pretzels baked as rolls for your sandwich. Fantastic. I got the Texas Wren. Don’t think that if your favorite sandwich is not on the Pretzel Roll page that it means you can’t get it on a pretzel roll, no sir. You can get any sandwich on the pretzel roll, it is up to you.

We went to Issac’s with Elise and Charles and Elise’s sister Amy. Amy just got back from camp and she had a great time. We are looking forward to our next vacation up to Elise’s parent’s place in Maine when we can see Amy again. We had a great meal and a great afternoon. Here’s Bonus Photo #1.

Charles, Elise, Amy, and Allison

After we dropped Amy back with Elise’s parent’s we went back to Elise and Charles’ place, I caught a quick nap before Justin and Vicki arrived at the house. We were going to go mini golfing or something out of doors but it was pouring so we opted for dinner and a movie. For dinner we went to Gullifty’s for dinner and it was really tasty. They had a huge selection of meals and they had great fruit flavored lemonades and Iced Teas. I’m a huge lemonade fan myself and 9 times out of 10 I choose it as my dining drink. I did have a Lager Lite and then switched to Strawberry Lemonade. Such a good strawberry lemonade, not as good as the ones I had in Oregon at a place I can’t remember the name of. I need to go back there again and have another meal. Someday I’ll get back to Ashland, OR.

After dinner we went to the West Shore Theatre, a second run theater where movies are $3.00 each and they have a reasonable snack bar too. It is a good historical theatre and I hope the doors stay open. We lost the zeotrope in Franklin, MA and that was a big loss to history as well as small independent theatres in America. If there is a small independent theatre near you, go support it. We ended up seeing The Break-Up. I liked it, I liked it for many reasons, 1. Peter Billingsley is all grown up and producing and acted in this movie, 2. Vince Vaughn’s delivery of lines, and 3. The ending, which I won’t give away but it was good and realistic. Elise did not like the ending.

It was very nice to see Vicki and Justin and get to talk. We found out that Charles, Justin and myself are all very in tune with the finances of our households, to a similarly scary degree.

Here is bonus Photo #2.

Allison,Elise,Vicki,Justin and Charles.

Last night Allison and I were at Elise and Charles’ for a cook out with some of Allison’s college friends. Emily arrived first and was soon followed by Jen and her son Brett. Brett was a little cutie, with a set of lungs on him. He’s 3 or 4 months old, very new and all. We missed seeing Ben (Jen’s husband and Brett’s dad), and hope to see him on another trip down the road. Then Erin and Rob came. Erin and Rob are fellow bloggers, Rob has had his blog for a very long time. Each time he changes it he gives it another number, he’s up to #7 now.

The girls had fun taking turns holding Brett and trying to get him to stop crying, Charles and I were pretty good at making him smile. Brett has the funkiest hair, Not one of my pictures really captured it very well. But his hair stands straight up and is very long.

We had a great meal with tons of food, shish-k-bobs with beef or chicken, mushrooms, zucchini, potatoes, and eggplant. I was a fan of all but the eggplant, I just don’t like it and never mind the fact that for much of my childhood I thought it was a plant that was similar to a cadbury egg. I thought that if an eggplant was cut open it would be like a hard boiled egg inside. I don’t know why I thought this but I did. And that has been a mental block on my enjoyment of the vegetable.

For dessert we had an ice cream cake and Nacho Mama’s S’mores. The ice cream cake was picked up as a congratulations for Erin and Rob’s engagement. We got the supermarket to write Congrad Erin and Rob, not intentionally mind you. We wanted it to say congrats but, and we should have checked, the woman in the bakery apparently could not spell correctly. So back at the house Allison and Elise tried to make the D into a T. I found it funny that she only wrote Congrad and not Congrads.

Nacho Mama’s S’mores is a dessert that I’ve been dying to make ever since I saw Ham on the Street on the food network where George Duran made these in a cast iron skillet on the campfire. The idea is that you can make a plate of smores that eats like a plate of nachos, it gets everyone excited and involved in sharing the dessert. I know that you purists out there may not like Nacho Mama’s S’mores because it takes the fun out of roasting the marshmallows, but it is fun to make and fun to eat. Here is the recipe. (from the Food Network Site: Original Page)

Nacho Mama’s S’mores Recipe
courtesy George Duran

Show: Ham on the Street
Episode: The Great Outdoors

Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

1 (14-ounce) package graham crackers
6 milk chocolate bars (recommended: Hershey’s)
1/2 (10.5-ounce) bag mini marshmallows

Break the graham crackers into pieces and place a layer in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Break up the chocolate bars and put a layer on top of the crackers. Now add another layer of crackers and chocolate. Evenly distribute the marshmallows over it all. Place the skillet in a corner of the campfire, rotating the pan 1/4 turn every 3 minutes, until the chocolate is melted and the marshmallow are golden brown, about 12 minutes. Be sure to protect your hands from the fire at all times.

Alternately, the S’mores can be made in a pie pan in a preheated 250 degree F oven until the chocolate and marshmallows melt.

After the Nacho Mama’s S’mores I fell into a S’mores coma and had a good night’s sleep. I did however; manage to get some pictures before the coma.

Jen and Brett

I love Brett’s expression, he got distracted by the flash and stopped crying. I didn’t want to give the poor kid a seizure so I had to stop taking pictures.