It was dinner out last night - out in our back field kneeling around our field stone enclosed campfire with our two wiener dogs -Sam Houston and KirbyMagnolia - running circles in the field and through the buckwheat patch, a bag of local Vollworth's hot dogs, a bag of buns, a bag of eager-to-be-eaten ( I know things about marshmallows) marshmallows and a full, U.P. moon on the rise. I'd been waiting for this night all summer long. It was perfect - just like those marshmallows I'd carefully, quietly and with steady perseverance and diligence, roasted to gooey perfection! I ate five of those gooey blocks of what David calls compressed cotton candy.I've had many - maybe hundreds - of roasted marshmallows
in my lifetime -they're one of my favorite things - and their taste last night brought back a package of memories from the summer of 1990, when Caleb, Abby, Michaela and I gathered around the Johnston family campfire on the shores of Lake Chandos, Ontario, roasted hot dogs and buns on a stick, along with those ubiquitous blocks of compressed cotton candy by the full light of an Ontario moon on the rise.
Ode to the Mallow: I love marshmallows so, so much that sometimes I pop one on a fork and roast it over the stove. This was really hard to do when we had an electric one! It does lack that campfire smokiness, but you can still get a good crispy brown outside and gooey middle. When I was growing up in Hungary, we couldn't get marshmallows, but someone once sent us a huge pillow sized bag of them and I will never forget it. It contained the delight of Christmas!
ReplyDeleteIf we have marshmallows at a campfire I eat them until I feel a little bit sick, because I know it will be a while until the next fire. Also, I say, skip the s'mores and just eat more marshmallows. Yum.
Ben and I are both avid marshmallow eaters...there have been many a bag devoured while playing dutch blitz, watching movies, or making a double batch of white salad...! not to mention, I am also a fan of the stove-top smore. There is something very luxurious about it when it's pouring the rain outside or in the middle of winter. and I have to say, I am partial to those famous jet-puffed marshmallows--chalk it up to childhood memories or nostalgia, but somehow, the fancy, homemade ones just don't hit the spot... :)
ReplyDelete