Hey Smalls, you wanna S'more?

One of my favorite things about camping is delicious, fire roasted food. So, imagine my disappointment when my two most recent camping trips fell through. Well, on Monday, I stopped off at home to share the joy of my first day of work, and wouldn't you know, my parents had a fire in the fire pit out back, all prepped and ready to go for some tasty hot dog roasting.

Now, before I get to the next part, I have to explain something. I hope my mother doesn't get embarrassed, but for as long as I can remember, she has been supremely health-conscious. When it comes to restraint born out of sheer willpower, she is unsurpassed. I respect and admire her for this, and I'm sure I'm sometimes a source of frustration for her because I'm never as careful as I should be when it comes to food.

That being said, she deserves all credit for this masterpiece:


You're thinking, what? You believe your mother invented the s'more?

Of course she didn't.

Let me explain. A month or so ago, my mother wasn't a huge fan of s'mores. She liked marshmallows okay, the roastier the better. Then, one fateful evening, she had some women from her neighborhood over for a ladies night and they roasted marshmallows around the fire while chatting and laughing and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

My mother's fire pit (yes, it was a birthday present) is made up of a metal ring, with stacked bricks around it. It's really quite a lovely addition to the back yard. Well, in a fit of inspired brilliance, Mom discovered that if you set a graham cracker on the metal ring, and set your chunk o' chocolate on top of that, the chocolate gets deliciously melty while the 'mallow is roasting.

I regret not having a camera to capture the expression of sheer delight on her face when she was telling me about this later.

"Guess how many s'mores I had..."

"I dunno, one--"

"Three!!!"

So, on Monday, I tried out this new, patent-pending technique. You know how sometimes the chocolate is too hard or cold and you can't bite through all of the layers of a s'more without the whole thing crumbling? Problem solved. The tricky thing now is figuring out what do with all the melty goodness. I, for one, got chocolate all over me.

Not a problem I ever mind having.

Next week on Foodie Friday: Blaming my father for my salmon snobbery and love of goat cheese.