a note on camping cuisine

my parents used to host pig roasts back at the farm, which usually concluded with a campfire in the evening...my brother would roast marshmallows for others, and he even took specific orders - if you wanted it nicely browned, or burnt, or just mildly roasted, he could do it all. if you wanted it toasty brown though, it usually took a long time because he used a rotisserie type style of roasting far above the flames to avoid burnage. he made marshmallow roasting into an art and i think i took a piece of that with me into adulthood.

i am a s'mores connaisseur. my s'mores consist, of course, of carefully roasting the marshmallow so it's nicely browned with a hard outer layer and soft gooey goodness on the inside. the graham crackers are also nothing revolutionary, but my secret is to use the cadbury thin chocolate bars. they melt wonderfully and the ratio of marshmallow to chocolate is just perfect. i also put the marshmallow on the cracker on its flat end rather than on its cylindrical side to allow for the marshmallow to pop, releasing the soft fluffy innerds thereby quickening the rate of the melting of the chocolate. yum. i've taken to making s'mores in the toaster oven, which isn't as sastisfying, but surprisingly good.

regarding corn; until i met kris, i took for granted that everyone eats corn on the cob the same way - in neat rows, going from left to right. i only eat up to three rows at a time, but usually just do two rows. kris has a more haphazard approach, where he bites randomly until all the kernels are gone. i think that corn tastes better when you eat it in orderly rows, seasoning as you go, but that could just be my anal nature talking.