George is a legitimate Oregon outdoorsman.
He fishes. He crabs. He hikes. He hunts.
And he is the inventor of Gummy Bear Stew, which like all good ideas, was born from a mix of necessity and ingenuity.
Last summer, George took his son Jack and his nephew Hayden on a weekend camping trip. They unpacked the tent, the clothes, the sleeping bags and the camp stove. Then they unpacked the beer and the gummy bears and rested.
They are male, after all.
When George went back to unpack the food for dinner, he realized that somehow his keys had gotten locked in his truck.
He could have called his wife Angie, but it was getting dark.
So first, he built a fire. Then he drank some more beer. Then he cut the tops off the cans and turned them upside down.
He melted the gummy bears in the bottoms of the cans, stuck a spoon it in and called it dinner.
If you’re thinking Ewwwwww, I’m with you.
But the children must be fed.
We camped with George and Angie this weekend, and you better know Gummy Bear Stew was on the menu. Any kind of candy is fair game. Our stew had Gummy Bears, Sour Patch Kids, Rolos and marshmallows.
This is not haute cuisine. And it tastes about how you imagine—like a melted Halloween candy bowl. If you don’t eat it fast enough, it hardens into a Gummy Bear Stew lollipop. One taste and my teeth almost fell out.
But camping moms know that the food rules are a wee bit different in the woods. And not 20 minutes earlier I was the mom who yelled “Don’t give me that natural bug spray crap! The baby needs DEET!!! NOW!!!”
The kids ate that stuff up. And then bounced off into the woods with flashlights to search for windigos and stump trolls, too amped up on liquid sugar to be scared.
Full Of Graces 