At Russian Gulch State Park

8/27/10

Making s’mores is a skill one must cultivate assiduously in order to do it well.  I, unfortunately, have not cultivated it at all. 

Let’s back up, just a bit.  I was planning to stay at Russian Gulch State Park, just above Mendicino, and I had finished all of my supplies the night before.  (I only carry enough food for a couple of days.  I had tried getting only enough food for one day, but I found that was too expensive.  So now, I buy a loaf of bread, mayonnaise, cheese, and lunch meat every few days, and fruit from the produce stands along the way.)  So I stopped at the grocery store in Mendicino to get my fixin’s, and they had all the stuff for making s’mores in a display at the front of the store. 

I stood there for a few minutes, remembering making s’mores out in the backyard with my brothers.  I remembered burning most of my marshmallows, and the charred taste of the s’mores.  I remembered how the marshmallows started the chocolate melting.  I remembered the way it tasted.  It sounded so good.  So I bought a package of Hershey’s milk chocolate bars, some Kraft marshmallows, and Honey Maid graham crackers, along with my bread, cheese, and salami.

When I got to my campsite, I bought firewood from the camp host and I started a fire.  It took a long time; I’m not that good at starting fires, yet, though I am getting better.

Then I had to find a stick long enough to roast marshmallows on.  You aren’t supposed to pick up wood from the ground at state campgrounds.  But I wanted my s’mores, so I found one that would do and I peeled the bark back and sharpened the end.  I put two marshmallows on the end and I held it up above the flames.  That’s when I realized why I always burned the marshmallows.  Marshmallows are basically puffed sugar.  If you get it close enough to the flames to heat it, it is probably close enough to catch on fire.  So I ended up with a marshmallow torch on the end of my stick.  But I figured that was the way I always ate them at home, so it couldn’t hurt me. I just blew them out and went on with making my s’mores.

I had already laid out my graham crackers with my chocolate bars on top before I started burning my marshmallows, so they were all ready.  I set the marshmallows on top of the chocolate bars--but they were still on the stick.  How to get them off the stick?  I remembered that was the hard part when I was little.  So I took another graham cracker for the top, and I scraped, and I scraped, and I scraped some more.  Marshmallows are really sticky when they are melted. 

I finally got most of the marshmallow off the stick and on to the graham crackers and chocolate.  Then, I was ready to enjoy my s’mores.  I took a bite, expecting the same sensations I had when I was little.  I was reminded then that a person’s tastes change as they grow.  A little kid might like sweet desserts, but as the kid grows she tends to enjoy them less and less. 

I guess this is just another instance of the old cliché:  “You can’t go home again.”