The Birth of the Cheesesteak  On a stormy afternoon in 1752 Benjamin Franklin returned home from the market with groceries for himself and his wife. They had planned on having a nice supper of steak, sautéed tri-colored bell peppers & onions, fresh bread, & his favorite provolone cheese. He was late, as usual, having stopped to philosophize along the way with whomever, would listen. On this particular day his wife decided to teach him a lesson. She tied the front door key to the tail of a kite and let it fly into the stormy skies above their cottage. While the famous founding father was climbing a ladder to retrieve the key it was struck by a bolt of lightning, which jumped from the key, coursed through his body and into his grocery bag, thence sending him flying to the ground below. His wife rushed to his side, less concerned for his well being, than for the retrieval of their supper. After having helped her soggy husband to the dining room table she proceeded to open the bag of groceries to find a very pleasant surprise. The lightning bolt had fused the contents of the bag into what turned out to be a very delicious sandwich! Ben, of course, claimed that such an experiment was his intent all along and immediately labeled “his” new invention Franklin’s Philadelphia Cheesesteak Sandwich. His friend George Washington found it to be most particularly pleasing, since it was easy enough to consume even with wooden teeth. True to this “historical” event, Franklin’s Famous Cheesesteak Company still uses the original ingredients Ben used, beginning with that original “experiment”. Well, except we stopped using lightning to fuse the sandwich together a few years back.