Sunday, October 13, 2013

J.A. Rock's Field Guide to S'mores

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, J.A. Rock's Field Guide to S'mores. 

(Tip: While reading, play "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor in the background.) 

The Guide: 















The Execution: Well, I have to admit that I went a little bit off plan. For starters, I didn't have the courage of 10 000 men. I had the courage of two nine-year-old boys, a six year old girl, my sister and my mum. So, you know, that's probably the equivalent of the courage of 20 000 men. 

Also, it's 30 degrees here today, and not really the sort of weather for a campfire. (I Googled it for the Americans - that's 86 of your degrees.) So instead of a campfire, we had a nest of tea lights on my dining room table. Seemed to do the trick. 

There were also no sticks involved. My garden is infested with possums. I'm not using any utensil a possum might have peed on, thanks. So we used chopsticks. Again, it seemed to work. 

But I wasn't the only one who went off plan. Here is Meg with her "s'more": What can I say? She's a rebel. 



We also ran into some problems with Step 3. While I don't think it was intentional, Tom's friend Hamish did set fire to his marshmallow. Twice. But then he ate it anyway. In fact, he was so impressed with s'mores that he made extra for his parents and his grandmother, and wrapped them up in foil to take home. 

The verdict: S'mores are incredibly sticky. Like, you think a thing's going to be sticky, and then it's stickier than you imagined would be possible. And how yummy were they? Well, I'll let Tom tell you:



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hah! Loved it.

Lisa said...

Thanks, Jules. She is hilarious and awesome and I love her with a pure undying passion.

I'm like that with anyone who sends me chocolate.

J.A. Rock said...

First of all, the children are adorable, and their rebel s'mores should become the new s'more gold standard.

Second, there's rarely a time when I'm not playing Eye of the Tiger, so that worked out well.

But LOL, no Step 7!!! I am notoriously bad with numbers, but I thought I could at least count. I mean, the drinking would explain why I didn't include it in the first place, but not how I could have looked it over sober the next day and been like, "Yep, looks fine to me."

Can we say it was terrorists? Let's say it was terrorists.

J.A. Rock said...

Right back at ya. Chocolate makes all things beautiful.

Lisa said...

I didn't even realise until I was loading the pics, and I thought, "Oh, I forgot to add in 7." And then there was no 7...which is because of the terrorists.

And Meg spent ages carving out a hole in the chocolate to put her tiny dab of marshmallow. Because she has to do things her way :)

Chris said...

S'mores are VERY sticky! Last weekend my brother and SIL had a chili cookoff, and after the judging, the kids all made s'mores. I'm pretty sure there's a sticky path of goo from the patio door to the downstairs bathroom now, from all the kids who needed to be de-gooed.

Also, if you have a gas stove, you can make s'mores over one of the burners. We used to do that in the winter when I was a kid. :)

Nona Raines said...

Considering the lack of a campfire, I consider your first foray into s'mores making a big success! But what happened to Meg's marshmallow? It looks very tiny--or is it underneath the chocolate? PS--I agree with Hamish that burnt marshmallows are the best!

Lisa said...

No gas stove either...but the tea lights seemed to work. :)

And so, so unexpectedly sticky. Why does applying heat to a marshmallow make it that much worse?

Lisa said...

Meg spent ages carving out a hole in her chocolate with a chopstick. Then dabbing a tiny piece of marshmallow inside it. Who knows why?

This is the same kid who, when she was two, was going through her book about colours and suddenly announced, "Brown is...complicated."

She marches to her own beat :)