I spent the day with my favorite MEM. It was a day of culinary capers as well. We started off with a walk down to the 18th Street Bi-Rite festival, where we tasted great nibbles (Ricchiuti Chocolates, Padron peppers, lemonade made there), watched a pig being slow-roasted (which fascinated the kids: how much does it weigh? how did they get the bread stuffing in it? what is that big scab on its tummy? how long does it cook? – they asked a hundred questions and E even wanted her picture taken with it), we danced the day away in the sun, had big ice cream cones from the creamery and hit the park to work up our appetites for dinner!

MEM loves Benihana. Ever since we got the fun JoyCook from Diane and Todd I have been wanting to fire it up and give them a show. Now, I knew this would be somewhat tricky in the food department as M is a pretty basic guy – ham, carrots & apples, maybe toss in a bagel or two for excitment. E is pretty adventuruous as long as she does not hear M, yick out over something. The littlest M loves it all from stinky blue cheese to day old coffee grounds sitting on our counter. For tonight we came up with Deniseie-hana for dinner!

I decided it would be fun to start the evening with a lesson on rolling spring rolls. They all love raw veggies so this would be a good addition to our steak and shrimp fest. I grated up some carrots, thinly sliced red peppers, mung beans, cucumber, cilantro, basil and baby red lettuce. Also, grilled up some mushrooms and eggplant just to add a little more texture. They had a GREAT time rolling up their own spring rolls and trying them out in peanut sauce and soy sauce. M did his with only carrots, E added everything except the herbs and the little M was eating it all!

*don’t you love the addition of salt on them!

Next we moved onto table-tip grilling. We were having a blast. Even threw a couple mushrooms and eggplants in the air like our Benni chefs. They were being so adventurous that they were even trying out their spring rolls with grilled steak and shrimp.

After all that fun we had to end the evening on a high note. I found this idea over at Slashfood, grilled bananas. I was not sure how they would deal with bananas going on the grill; but, once we started stuffing them and grilling them, they were all game! What a great addition to some vanilla ice cream!

Recipe