How ’bout some s’mores?

Every year in the late fall, Mrs. Pastry gets the same look in her eye, it says: this is the perfect time of year for camping! Coincidentally, it’s usually the same time I re-discover the winter maintenance instructions for the lawnmower and head out to the garage. For I, my friends, am an outdoor sissy. The mere thought of camping takes me back to my brief tenure as a Boy Scout, of the long nights I spent shivering in my government-issue sleeping bag, the inside of which one of my tent mates had either drizzled with maple syrup or slathered generously with butter. What to say other than we baking science nerds tend not to be popular in middle school.

Looking back, however, I think what really intimidated those poor kids was my daunting s’mores-making skills. Seeing the mouthwatering, melty chocolate and marshmallow sandwiches I whipped up by the fireside, how could they not have been consumed with envy? Really I pity them. I do. So, in their honor, I think it’s high time I tried to replicate some of the deep woods triumphs of my youth, only at home where I have access to both syrup-free bedding and a shower (just in case the wife gets any ideas).