Part of me wants to tell you about the time I packed pizza dough, my homemade red sauce, a squirt-bottle of olive oil I filled at home, and grated mozzarella into the woods for what was meant to be a glorious camping cooking moment of fire-kissed pizza. But then, part of me doesn't want to talk about it at all, because it all went to hell, with everything dripping through the grate into the fire, the rest burning, and my boyfriend mocking my city-cooking pretensions. So I dumped his ass. Well, it took a few years and a lot of therapy, but, you know, in the end, you can't be hanging out with people who greet your failures with mockery. Even when the failures are only about cooking while camping. Right?
Of course, one way to prevent mockery and heartbreak in the woods would be to make sure your ambitious campfire cooking is foolproof from the get-go. You could make the best s'mores in the campground, with homemade graham crackers, artisanal marshmallows, and a Valrhona chocolate bar. Yes, there is such a thing as an artisanal marshmallow. Some of the best are made by Laura's Candies in southern Minnesota, where Laura Dhuyvetter, a mom of five, has built a special commercial kitchen in an outbuilding on her family's land so that she can flavor, whip, and gel molten sugar into marshmallows that make the Jet-Puffs at the neighboring campsites look like so many flavorless corporate toothaches. Laura also packages her marshmallows, in flavors including Amaretto and butterscotch, together with her incredibly real, homemade, honey-touched graham crackers, so you can make s'mores worthy of a pastry chef. And for s'more season, she's got some summer-only flavors, including lavender lemon and chocolate raspberry. I've been sitting here for a few minutes now trying to imagine what the perfect camping beverage is to accompany super-s'mores—perhaps a nice bourbon or a zinfandel port for one of the very chocolate combinations, but what to pair with a s'more made of lavender, lemon, graham crackers, and chocolate? I don't really care—just promise me, whatever you pick, if the person you're sharing your best idea with mocks you for it—dump them, fast.
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