Marshmallow

Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up, the pillow was gone.

*Tommy Cooper

I love the texture more than the taste, for sure. There is something so alluring about the marshy-mallowy-ness, perhaps akin to kneading bread?

For the sugar-restricted child of a diabetic mum that I was, summer with my Granny meant access to the pillowy sticky transformative wonder, the marshmallow. Nothing to do with the herb, all to do with the sugar. Don't even much like them alone, cooked ones are indeed yummy in s'mores, what an American name, but they do produce what my father calls "instant cavity." I also love them in cocoa, which is the primary form I have them in these days, with my father, at the kitchen table looking out over a wintry scene, sipping hot cocoa and crunching the freeze-dried tiny little marshmallow beings in our instant cocoa. A memory I will never forget.

Of course, we spent many an August night, waiting for the moon to rise after dinner, looking out over our rural lake at the stars reflecting on the sheer black pool that was the surface, and dancing around with the marshmallow roasting sticks my father had carved and making ephemeral poetry in the wind with the glowing tips...