Some evenings are perfect for a fire. Many evenings are. You wake up the next morning with the scent of wood in your hair and a feeling of pleasure at having cleared a few unnecessary things from your life.

The urge to build a fire in the ring of stones often comes near an equinox or a solstice. Or a full moon or a sleeping moon. Not that magic was intended.

Sitting, standing in a circle around the dancing flames, there is magic. Conviviality, conversations, quiet reflection, flame hypnotized.

Twigs from dried herbs after leaves or flowers are carefully plucked for tea and seasoning. Reading words scratched on letters from a past that belonged to someone else before turning the words free. Imagine the letters and words and punctuation dancing up in the smoke.
Enacting an act of censorship by burning a book that was written by a horrible man, or perhaps it is also a message of support for his victims.

Silent determination at burning away a negative thought.
Frantic crackling of the resin in a small christmas tree. Shoo to the longest nights of the year.  

Just burning some wood that piles up after a season…

When morning comes the fire pit is clean ash in the ring of stones. Smoke lingers in my hair.

 

My young adult children enjoy marshmellows and the simple smore. I did not let them indulge those much when they were small in my attempts at keeping S(*) away from their greedy palates. Good luck! We found my youngest up at dawn standing on a stool by the stove mixing caramel in a pan. At 4, this child had invented caramel. It was quite perfect! A natural progression, when your first distinct word is ice-cream.

In my efforts to fight S(*) I created a halloween tax. All of this because I tried to break probably the least important parent to child cycle: I remembered distinctively my rummaging through pantries in search of chocolate, cookies, and caramels.  I tried to subdue that in my own children. Why did I feel it was one of those essential things I needed to teach them for their survival in the world?  Ha! They learn from rubbing against peers, from all the sweetness added to parties, dinners, and ads…. They learn from experience. 

I tried to offer them the experience I had as a child: roast a piece of cheese on the fire. Let’s say that was only magical to a child of the 70’s in South of France where marshmallows were hardly common nor a popular item. Melted cheese bites did not catch on, there were too many marshmallows where and when my children grew up.

Where does that leave us? Around the fire with marshmallows and chocolate and dull cookies. I might eat one marshmallow, maybe 2 at the most. The best way to satisfy my craving for the sugary, meltingly incredible treat is to have ONE. For me it’s quite enough! but it will be double roasted. Or triple roasted!

The first golden brown layer puffed up and gently pulled off. Warm sweet gooeyness and the thin paperlike caramel layer.  Then, second roast, to form another perfectly golden brown layer. A perfect marshmallow can be toasted a third time and that is all I need. Enough S* and satisfaction.

 

Fun facts about marshmallows:

-In Sweden I learned that a marshmallow candy could be puffed up in a microwave.

-Originally the root of the marshmallow plant was used to make this sweet. Now it’s gelatine.

-Marshmallow is a common weed that has a lovely weed flower resembling a small hollyhock with a purplish center and petals ranging from white to mauve. Some varieties have a mucilaginous sap in the stem and roots that was used to make marshmallows before gelatin became the norm. I can only imagine how this might have been a perfect way to create a perfect Italian meringue for pies… This property also makes it an effective ingredient for cough syrup. The latin name, Althea (Health) Officinalis, says it all: there are many benefits to the plant.

 – A vegan marshmallow is usually made from agar agar and not the plant marshmallow.

 

So back to the fire. Double roasting a marshmallow. Another ritualisation of the ordinary things of life. And waking with the scent of wood smoke in my hair.

 

(Sometimes the hair is clumped and like odd little sticky twigs with the stickiness of marshmallows.)