Temptation

There are many foods that my British husband misses living over here in the US that either can't be had or can only be found at a very dear price.  The only food I truly missed when we were living in the UK was marshmallows.  I once bought what passed for marshmallows over there and tried to toast them over a campfire. It was awful - saccharine tasting stuff that just melted without toasting - and one of my favorite treats, hands down, is toasted marshmallows.  We have installed a wood-burning stove at the little house on the prairie, so I can pretty much toast marshmallows whenever I want throughout the winter.  You'd think the novelty would wear off, but no, each and every time I have a toasted marshmallow, I think it is the Best. Thing. Ever.

The way I like to eat them, I toast them ever-so-golden brownish - best done carefully over really hot coals - then gently pull the toasted outer layer off as a whole and pop it in my mouth.  The slightly crispy, caramelized sugar shell is absolutely sublime.  This leaves a ball of slightly melted marshmallow at the end of the stick, ready to repeat the process.  I think I once managed a record six "pulls" on one marshmallow.  I recently discovered that if I toast and pull a marshmallow shell off once or twice then simply eat the marshmallow ball left behind, I get delightful melted marshmallow covering a bouncy unmelted center.  Yu-um-my!

My dear husband is often kind enough to point out when the fire reaches perfect marshmallow toasting conditions, and on a recent evening when he did so, I confessed that I only had two marshmallows left in the bag and had decided not to buy more because I found it difficult to resist the siren call of my favorite treat.  And that reminded me of this video, over which we shared a giggle.

I love the little blond girl who nibbles away about 2/3 of her marshmallow then examines it and puts it back on the plate, like, "nah - they'll never notice."