I hadn’t been to Mashpee Commons in a while, and was excited to see that the space where we used to get sandwiches has turned into Washashore Bakery. They have the cutest little desserts that taste good too. We picked up a few teats to bring home for dessert – the lemon tart was just perfectly done and the kids adored the little lobster cookies. The shop offers cinnamon buns, scones, coffee cake, pop tarts, lemon squares, blondies, brownies, cheesecakes, bread puddings, cookies, cupcakes, tea breads and more.

The bakery was opened in 2016 by Sandy McPherson and you can pop in and see them icing cakes or making desserts in their open kitchen.

For Thanksgiving they are offering pies at $23 in the following flavors: pumpkin, pecan, chocolate cream, apple cranberry, apple, cherry and blueberry.

Washashore Bakery

14 Central Square, Mashpee Commons, Mashpee, MA

www.washashorebakery.com

Monday – Saturday 9:30am – 4:30pm

Sunday 10am – 4pm

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I can’t remember when I first heard about Mom and Pops Burgers, but I knew I wanted to try them out. When we were down at the Cape we took a day trip down to Chatham and we stopped here for a bite to eat. The weather was iffy – so sitting on the patio was going to be a gamble with the kiddos, so we waited for a table inside (your order at the counter and they call your number – you bring it to your table). It was fairly crowded, but we lucked out. Let me tell you that the burgers were DELICIOUS! I had the cheeseburger with lettuce, onions, pickles and “pops sauce” (ketchup and mayo based sauce) – all the burgers are made to order and you can call in your order if you are in a rush for time. The kids had hot dogs and they were completely happy – and of course we had the fries and frappes.

What other kinds of burgers do they have on the menu?

CALIFORNIA BURGER
Pepper Jack Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Mom’s Sauce

CHILI CHEESEBURGER
Chili, Cheese Sauce, Pickled Jalapeño Peppers, Onion, Mom’s Sauce

EL DYABLO BURGER (HOT!!)
Hot Habanero Cheddar Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Shishito Peppers, Mom’s Sauce

NAUGHTY DYABLO BURGER (HOTTER!!!)
Ghost Pepper Cheddar Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Pickled Jalapeño Peppers, Shishito Peppers, Mom’s Sauce

BACON AND BLUE CHEESEBURGER
Blue Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Mayo, Tomato

STEAMED CHEESEBURGER
Aged Sharp Cheddar Cheese, Lettuce, Onion, Pickles. Please allow 15 minutes of cooking time.

Next time we go we will have to bring my dad, I’m betting he would LOVE the steamed burger!!

What else do they have besides burgers and dogs?

BLT
Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, Mayo

CHILI
Chili, Cheese Sauce, Onion

FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH
Lettuce, Tomato, Chipotle Mayonnaise, Mom’s Sauce

FRIED CHICKEN TENDERS

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH
American Cheese

MOM’S HOMEMADE LUMPIA
Hand-rolled Filipino Pork Eggrolls served with Sweet Chili Sauce

PLANTAIN + BLACK BEAN VEGETARIAN BURGER
Lettuce, Onion, Avocado, Sweet Chili Sauce – contains dairy

SALA
Avocado, Black Beans, Tomato, Monterey Jack Cheese, served with choice of Balsamic Vinaigrette, BBQ Sauce, Chipotle Mayo, Honey Mustard, Mom’s Sauce or Sweet Chili Sauce – For additional charge, add Beef, Chicken, or Veggie Patty

FILIPINO PORK BURGER
Adobo seasoned pork patty, house-made Papaya Slaw, Chili Garlic Mayo

Mom and Pops Burgers

1603 Main Street, Chatham, MA

http://www.momandpopschatham.com

Open 7 days a week 11:30am – 8pm

Parking located in front of the restaurant, along the right side and in the back – look for the marked spots.

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This freezing weather has me wishing for warmer weather. Wanted to get this post out there, it’s from a while back, but the food was just too good not to share. For our anniversary, my parents treated us to a dinner out at C Salt, a local restaurant in Falmouth. The trendy restaurant and wine bar is cozy inside, I’d definitely recommend making a reservation if you want to try it out.

We started the evening with a few appetizers – I picked the poke style tuna tartar ($15). The diced tuna had sesame, lime, soy, togarashi, and avocado served on top of a bed of seaweed salad and a side of wonton chips. Perfectly salty and delicious, balanced by the creaminess of the avocado – this dish was a winner.

While the crab meat appetizer from the raw bar was tasty, the tuna was the clear winner of the evening.

I had a seafood paella that was light and had a generous helping of shellfish.

My husband was excited about the lemon grilled swordfish chop served over a bed of broccolini ($34). I loved the presentation – such a statement dish that you say ‘wow’ about when it comes to the table.

I really wanted to try the caramelized onion gruyere mac and cheese even though it didn’t really ‘go’ with anything we ordered. Very creamy and very tasty, not too heavy as mac and cheese can be sometimes.

Even though we were stuffed to the brim, we decided to get some dessert – because hey, why not. They were tasty but the seafood is what really shines at the restaurant. We went out early in the evening and the restaurant slowly became filled – service was consistent even as the night got busier. We really enjoyed our meal here and look forward to going back once the weather is a little warmer.

C Salt serves dinner 6 nights a week, they are closed on Tuesdays. Many of the options on the menu are available to carry out – you can call the restaurant to place your order. There is plenty of parking in the lot attached to the restaurant.

C Salt

75 Davis Straights, Route 28, Falmouth, MA

www.csaltfalmouth.com

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For the past 70 years, the Rhodes family has been harvesting cranberries, and has made Cape Cod Select Cranberries a household name. If you’re like me, you probably only think of cranberries at Thanksgiving time, but they are great all year round. The Cape Cod Select website has a bunch of great recipes to choose from, both sweet and savory, that sound pretty darn tasty. I was most excited about these cranberry squares that we got to try when we arrived in Carver for our tour. They’re super easy to make and you can even get the kids involved. Find the recipe here.

In true New England style, it poured like crazy for the tour of the bog. Good thing we brought boots! We slipped on some waders and headed into the cranberry bog to see what it was all about. Cape Cod Select grows four types of cranberries, two that are harvested early in the season and two that are harvested late in the season. The type of cranberry depends on if they are wet or dry harvested.

They laser level the bogs so that they can efficiently reuse the water on the next bog when they flood them. When do they flood the bogs? Three times a year: to harvest, in the winter to preserve the bog (they let the water freeze and add sand on top), and occasionally for pest control (those pesky bugs can’t live under water ). They have about 800 acres of land, 200 bogs and it takes about 4 hours to harvest a whole bog. That big machine you see gently shakes the cranberries up to the surface where they are collected and packed into bins.

Cape Cod Select offers fresh and frozen cranberries and you can find them in most major retailers. If you want to find a store near you that sells Cape Cod Select Cranberries, click here.

After we got out of the rain, we toured the inside of the facility. We watched how the cranberries were sorted and separated from the stems.

This cool machine looks at the conveyor belt below it (that has cranberries on it) and can see the damaged, undersized or discolored berries. It then shoots air down at those berries and they go into a different bin – the “perfect” berries move on to packaging. Each bag is stamped with a code so that each bag can be traced to a particular bog and it can tell you when it was harvested. Pretty cool!

What is your go to cranberry recipe?

For more information, check out the Cape Cod Select website.

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Right after we went to Pumpkin Day, we headed over to Wareham to go to the Cranberry Festival. The festival was held on a Saturday and a Sunday in October, and it was rumored that they saw over 14,000 people! So what should you expect? Long lines, we probably waited 20 minutes just to get to the parking lot. Once we got to the “lot” we realized that it was a big sand pit. Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes. They have busses to take you from the lot to the ticket tent, but it’s hard to get a stroller on. I suggest getting there first thing. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children and seniors and free to kids under 7.

When you first walk in there are tons of booths for sampling and activities for the kids. We went straight to the back to catch  a bus to the bog. We probably waited in line for about 10 minutes – there was a bus every few minutes, it was very efficient. Once you arrive at your destination, you were able to see the flooded cranberry bogs and for $25 a person, you could throw on some waders and jump right into the bog! Made for some super cute photos. For $50 per person you could go up in a helicopter and see the bogs from above. They had a tractor ride that took you around the bog and a fun activity for the kids where they could make a ‘bog in a cup’.

There was live music, local artisans, paddle boat rides and food for sale. All in all, a long, but fun day.

Did you miss the festival? You can take a public tour of the bogs as well, head over to the website for more details.  Tours are about an hour and a half. There isn’t a lot of walking, but make sure to wear boots! (Soggy feet are no fun) (Note: public tours are finished for the 2017 season) If you have a group of 10 or more, you can arrange for a private tour. From the website:

AD Makepeace Company

158 Tihonet Road, Wareham, MA

Home

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Trying to wrap up all things fall since December is right around the corner. Wanted to share some fun images from Pumpkin Day at Bourne Farm. It takes place every year (rain or shine) at Salt Pond Bird Sanctuary. Parking and admission is free, but you pay for tickets per activity. Not only is there a large pumpkin patch for the kids to pick out their own pumpkins, but they have crafts, a petting zoo, pony rides, hay rides, tractor hay tides (the kids went 3 times!), face painting, bounce houses and the biggest hit for us was the bubble guy.

There is lunch and baked goods available for sale under the tent and you can hang out and enjoy the scenery (the grounds are beautiful) or relax to the live music. We had a super tasty pizza from Wolf Pizza. Don’t want to wait until their next event, don’t worry, they cater too.

For more information about Bourne Farm, check out their website.

Bourne Farm

6 North Falmouth Highway, North Falmouth, MA

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Fall may be my favorite time down on Cape Cod. The crowds are gone, you can get down Main Street in a reasonable amount of time, and you can get into the restaurants again. We recently went to Simply Divine Pizza in Falmouth. The kids loved watching the chefs make the pizza, spinning the dough high up into the air. The pizzas are Neapolitan style and cooked in a stone fired oven. They only use all natural ingredients and locally sourced produce.

Pizzas come in mouth watering combinations like fig and prosciutto, chicken pesto, shrimp scampi, white three cheese, cheeseburger, meat lover, Greek and scallop bacon to name a few. You can make your own pizza with toppings like house made maple fennel sausage, meatballs, apple wood smoked bacon, black olives, fresh pineapple, kalamata olives, sweet potato, and anchovies. Pizza not your thing (seriously?), they have other options such as pasta, sandwiches and paninis.

Kid’s menu options include a ham and cheese panini, grilled cheese, hot dog, kids pasta and meatballs, mac and cheese or a slice of pizza all for $8.95. They come with a free soft drink and a Hoodsie cup.

They deliver within a 5 mile range with a $10 minimum purchase plus a $2.50 delivery charge. Parking is available on Main Street or in lots close by. They have a good size space and can accommodate large parties.

Where is your go – to place for pizza on the Cape?

Simply Divine Pizza

271 Main Street, Falmouth, MA

www.divinepizza.com

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Summer is coming to an end, Labor day is just around the corner and you’re getting the kids ready to go back to school. But after Labor day is the best time to be on the Cape (well, I think it is!) because all the tourists are gone, you can drive through town without the ferry backup, and you can actually get into your favorite restaurants. Another great way to hold on to those summer days? Head over to the Cape Codder, where they have just recently opened up a 30,000 square foot indoor water park. How does that extend summer? On days where the weather is nice, they open the retractable roof, and it’s just like being outside.

I recently had a chance to check the park out with my family. The park has 4 tube slides: 2 in the wave pool area (50 feet and 80 feet) and two high speed water slides in main room that are 160 feet each! The main area (above) has a “stormy river”, their interpretation of a lazy river, with sections of both calm and choppy water and plenty of places for you to get sprayed by water jets.

The wave pool is 10,00 square feet and has waves that are up to 2 feet! There is a 24 person hot tub and two saunas in this room as well.

For those of you with smaller children, they have a kiddie area – complete with  a small pirate ship and small kiddie sized slides.

They have a snack bar  in the pool area or you can head over to the Hearth n’ Kettle for a bite. The large menu offers something for everyone – and a great thing for us was that they serve breakfast all day! Pictured above, left to right: bacon cheese burger ($11.97), breakfast sandwich ($8.19), kid’s mac and cheese and chicken fingers ($7.99).

Day passes are available on a limited basis for $40 per person ($30 per child under 48″). Admission to the park is included if you are staying at the hotel. So now that I’ve told you about the water park, you’re thinking, ok, but where is the Cape Codder? It’s conveniently located right off the highway (Route 6) in Hyannis. If you decide to stay overnight, there are tons of things to do after you’ve spent the day at the water park: take the ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, bike along the bike path, spend the morning on a whale watch or browse local artists in the shops in downtown Hyannis. Speaking of local artists, the Cape Codder likes to support local artisans – check out the chandelier in the lobby, made by McDermott Glass Studio, located in Sandwich. It’s made up of 400 hand blown glass pieces, including fish, shells and that large whelk shell hanging on the bottom.

The hotel has 266 rooms, including some great family suites (shown above). There are plenty of activities for the kids, including bonfires and s’mores, movie night, live animal shows and daily arts and crafts.

The family suites are great if you’re traveling with grandparents or kids – they sleep 6, two in the master bedroom, two on a sleeper sofa, and two on a Murphy bed that folds up in the daytime to be a kitchen table. The suites offer two large bathrooms and a kitchenette.

Looking for something a little more luxurious? Try the 2 or 3 bedroom residences that are part of the Cape Codder Residence Club.

To circle back with the year round theme, I’ll leave you with an image of the hotel’s year round outdoor pool – yup, you heard that right – it’s a salt water heated pool! Swoon!

Disclaimer: I was invited as a guest to visit the Cape Codder water park. Admission for my family to the park as well as lunch were provided complimentary. All opinions are my own.

Cape Codder Resort and Spa

1225 Iyannough Road, Hyannis, MA

www.capecodderresort.com

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Parkside has a nice assortment of sandwiches and lighter options if you’re just planning on stopping in for coffee and dessert. (Their desserts rotate daily!)

I  had the housemade egg salad ($8) on toasted wheat bread with lettuce and tomato. The egg salad was good, it wasn’t overpowered with mayo and had celery and onions mixed in. We didn’t get the handcut fries this time, but you definitely should if you decide to stop in! The breakfast here is delicious, I especially like the classic that comes with two eggs, any style, with toast and your choice of meat.  You order at the counter and the servers will bring you your food as it is made. Nice to have another option for lunch on Main Street. Breakfast will run between $7-$9 and sandwiches or salads can run between $7 and $12 (the exception being the options with lobster).

Parkside Market

281 Main Street, Falmouth, MA

http://parksidemarket.com/

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Siena is an Italian restaurant located in Mashpee Commons. The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating.

Of course I ordered the bolognese. It was served with linguini and the sauce was a combination of beef and pork. The serving size for lunch was generous, but the dish was average.

We also ordered the blue crab cakes that came served with a lemon caper aioli. These were pretty tasty. Service was spotty at best even though it was past lunch hour.

Where is your go-to place in Mashpee Commons? I’m still looking for a good place to eat.

Siena Italian Grill

Mashpee Commons, 17 Steeple Street, Mashpee, MA

http://www.siena.us

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