What would be summer without camping, camping without campfires or campfires without marshmallows?
Frankly we don't wanna know!
Last weekend we were fortunate enough to secure a beautiful wooded spot in our favorite campground and so, went camping Friday night. Adding to all the evident pleasures of camping - the outdoors, open skies, stars and closeness to nature, is the practical utility of doing it on a Friday - its still only Saturday afternoon when you return home after a night in the woods. You are still buffered by a Sunday from the gloom and doom of Monday. (To understand my perspective better - read this)
Anyway, back to the topic of the day - Marshmallows. I mean of course we had other delectable goodies - mostly supplied by Trader Joe's - Curry flavored Naans and Pollo Asado for grilling. But the show stealer were Marshmallows as we witnessed the emergence of expertise in roasting them, as also the continued bungling on parts of others - but I jump ahead of myself.
As soon as we arrived at the campsite, we set about furiously trying to confuse each other - in other words began setting up the tent. My new rule for tents is - anything that's not pegged to the ground will confound you sooner or later. The kids watched amused as their parents unintentionally played buffoons.
Finally it was accomplished and I started our camp-fire which eventually got going. And that was when my better half decided to open the bag of marshmallows and went hunting in the woods for the right twigs for the job and we started toasting them.
The first few could best be described as charcoal encrusted marshmallow bits. And here's where my better-half began to justify the adjective- better. She methodically set about experimenting with distance from flame and position in the fire pit etc and finally figured out the perfect combination of getting toasted crispy exterior with a nearly melted interior. While the kids and I looked on in amazement. Needless to say, I tortured a couple more in a fruitless pursuit of improvement and quickly gave up. While my know-it-all older daughter quickly asserted that mom's were just like hers implying that mom had learned fast and well from her.
So, toasted Marshmallows started out as appetizers and continued on to the dessert course.
Meanwhile the main-course of Grilled Pollo Asado (Chicken marinated in Mexican Asado spices) and curry flavored Naan - also grilled briefly to warm it up, had to be content with being mere side-kicks to the 'Mallows.
For several long moments afterward we sat in the prairie looking at the stars in a quiet, moon-less night uninterrupted by any sounds and lights of civilization. At the moment, life was indeed good!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment