Thursday, September 08, 2016

S'more

Last week I went with the Tius and their cousins to Gyukaku in Midtown to have Japanese BBQ. The marinated meats were quite salty for my taste, and the sheer amount of meat was overwhelming. I wish we had ordered more seafood or vegetables, but the beef came in a set. Still I enjoyed myself immensely, as Tim and I argued over when the meat was done (Tim likes his meat burnt to a crisp, I like mine still bleeding), and I liked the opportunity to meet Jon's extended family. The best part of the meal however came at the end, when I finally got to try a really American item that I never had before: s'mores.

I had heard about s'mores before as a very outdoor-sy camping kind of meal. Marshmallows would be roasted over an open fire, and then somehow manoeuvred into a sandwich form with chocolate. It sounded dreamy to me, but not something where I would make myself without experience (graham crackers? What were graham crackers?). Plus, I'm not the world's largest fan of sweets.

It turned out that Sona loved s'mores, and was excited to see them on the menu, and I wanted to try them. It was settled then - for dessert we would all have s'mores. When the s'mores came, Sona led the way by instructing everyone on how to best melt the marshmallow (turned out I wasn't the only one at the table who didn't have s'mores before), by turning it rapidly on the skewer just at the top of the flame. However when everyone's marshmallow had melted adequately, mine was still pure white, and I impatiently decided to plunge it into the flame, while remembering at the back of my mind that the internet once told me that marshmallows make great fire starters. Sure enough, my marshmallow caught fire.

As I yelped in panic and the table got excited and laughed, I waved my marshmallow around rapidly trying to put the flame out (I heard Sona saying: "Don't do that! Blow on it!", but it didn't quite register through my panic). By the time the flame was out (I don't remember how, maybe Jon did something?), I was sad because my marshmallow was charred and didn't look pretty anymore. So like a good husband, Jon gave me his.

And then the same thing happened again. I got impatient, and my marshmallow caught fire again. I think I blew on it this time, and reacted faster (I guess I was completely expecting this one to catch fire too), and so the second one was less charred. I made the s'more, and utterly loved the taste when I bit into it.

Over the weekend, Jon and I went to Trader Joe's. As I tried to look for chocolate and hazelnut cookies, I saw a boxes of graham crackers, with bags of marshmallows conveniently shelved underneath them. I grabbed them, and a few pre-packed bars of milk chocolate. I've been eating a s'more every second night since for dessert, heeeee.

No comments: