National Toasted Marshmallow Day

August 30 was National Toasted Marshmallow Day.  No, for real. I can’t make this stuff up.  Well, I certainly COULD, but I’m not.  I swear.  My wife has a crazy sweet-tooth, so I tend to believe her when it comes to news about sweets. 

She brought this to my attention earlier this week and suggested that we start a fire in our backyard and make s’mores.  Because our last attempt at starting a fire went so well…  Ahem, sarcasm!  Cough, cough.  Needless to say, we still had some fire wood left over!  We also have a small fire pit that previous tenants left behind, and we’ve had an itch to put it to use.  Furthermore, for this past Christmas, my wife requested a cast pie iron often used to make “pudgy pies.”  Since I’m not much of an outdoorsman, those haven’t been put to use yet either.  You guessed it, we decided it was time to break those bad boys out and do some work with a bonfire. 

We sent an invite to a couple of friends and our neighbor that lives downstairs from us, and it was set.  Yes, we were kind enough to invite our neighbor to her own backyard.  Don’t judge me.  It’s the thought that counts.  We checked our cabinets and plucked out the few key ingredients, then made a list of things for me to pick up at the store after checking some expiration dates.  I also got to scoop up my dog’s piles of waste that he so graciously leaves behind for me to find.  I know you’re jealous. 

Then, the time had come…the moment of truth.  It was time to start building the fire.  I set up the metal, bowl-shaped fire pit and tossed in a couple small pieces of firewood, along with some kindling.  I tried to keep it small since I wasn’t trying to heat all of the outdoors, and only needed enough heat to light some marshmallows on fire and heat up a pie iron.  Not to mention I really didn’t want to have to wait outside forever until the fire died, or go through another fiasco of putting another fire out.  Without the use of lighter fluid, the wood took a little coaxing before going up in flames.  Throughout the evening I ended up throwing a couple more logs on the fire to keep it going, and it flamed out just at the right time.

Pudgy pie on the fire

This was the first National Toasted Marshmallow Day that I have ever observed, or heard of for that matter, and it was a success.  Any reason to blow out a flaming marshmallow is a good reason for me!  As long as it’s not while standing on top of a skyscraper with a 10-story marshmallow man pillaging the city.  As long as that doesn’t happen, we’re already looking forward to next year.

Thank you, that is all.