S'mores over a barrel fire and deep fried cheesecake.

For the past 5 years, whenever I would visit my family in Arizona, my stepdad would tell me about this place in the desert, where you would sit next to your own fire in a barrel, listen to cowboy music, eat burgers and drink beers under the stars. It sounded Wild West, that’s for sure, and I have wanted to go since that very first day he mentioned it.

Every time, we get towards the end of my trip and we haven’t gone. This time, I told them – I am going. It is happening. So they made it happen.

Tonight me, my brother Jai, my mum, stepdad and my mum’s parents all head out there to San Tan Flat to meet my Uncle and Auntie and my cousins 4 year old son Alex.

We walked in to a old west saloon scene, complete with American flags, guns on the walls and hunting trophies.

It seems I am doing a mesquite grilled chicken tour of Arizona – i’ve some how ordered it in most of the restaurants I have eaten at in the past few weeks. So I went for the mesquite chicken sandwich with potato cakes, kind of like crab cake style latkes.

Afterwards, my Aunt Christie bought a smores kit for us to toast marshmallows over our fire. Jai took toasting marshmallows very seriously.

We smooshed the hot, sticky melted mess of marshmallow between two sweet honey graham crackers, with a wedge of soft hersheys chocolate which melted straight away and dripped from the edges.

The distant strum of Johnny Cash, low glow of the fire, and content after a burger and fries, my stepdad David got a little sleepy.

We had seen deep fried cheesecake on the menu, and we of course had to work out what was going on there. Wrapped in a thin batter a little like deep fried ice cream, the cheesecake was from the Cheesecake Factory, melty warm, and covered in the sweet crispy batter and drizzled with a jam like berry sauce.

We finished almost everything – but of course we did, we are Kingston-Williamses!

After dinner Jai and I went to the games room and played a game of pool. Evidently I was going to lose – but to Jai’s great disappointment I didn’t. I won! I am terrible at pool so am quite happy to have won.