1. Nachos

I know, I know, it sounds random. And weird. But I do have a reason.

When we were younger, my sister, older cousin, and I would go to my grandparents house for a week or two over the summer. It was always the same. We would spend lazy hours reading Farley Mowatt books, playing in the sprinkler, and riding their horse Casey. One summer, when we got sick and tired of doing nothing, we convinced our grandma to go into town and get us one of those inflatable boats. She returned an hour or so later with a red, white, and blue raft-like thing. My sister, determined as always to terrify me, promptly coined it Speedy. Not only was I scared of the name, I was convinced that it would carry us under the bridge, (which couldn't have been more than 6 inches off of the water) and into who knows where. Being hungry by this time, we decided to make nachos for Lunch. My grandma gave us each small tin pie plates, and we filled ours to the brim with chips, olives, tomatoes, onions, and of course a life-time supply of cheese. We put our respective culinary delicacies into the oven and waited impatiently for the cheese to melt. We then topped them with dollops of sour cream and canned salsa, and raced out to the awaiting boat. The three of us shoved on life jackets as quickly as humanly possible and crammed ourselves into a boat meant for one person at best. We spent the rest of the afternoon trying every possible way we could think of to make it remotely comfortable, although it was futile. So we finished our nachos, my nose crammed into the back of my sisters life jacket and my cousin balancing precariously on the bow of the boat. But we had a blast doing it. Many years, holes, and rolls of duck tape later we are on to our fourth, (by my count anyway) speedy. We are now lucky if we can fit just two of us onto the boat, and my grandma has become to arthritic to really play with us anymore. But, in spite of the years, nachos remain a summer tradition I will always love.