This idea came to me while I was making To Do lists. I’d made gift baskets for the adults in my family before, but I’d taken a hiatus for several years, first while I was in graduate school and then while recovering from a pre-holiday breakup. That year I spent the gift basket assembly energy on dividing up a collection of CDs (remember those?) that had been five years in the making. Don’t worry, I got every last Beatles album. But I digress.
The marshmallows – oh, the sure to be brilliant, melt-in-your-mug mallows! – would mark my triumphant return to the holiday goody baskets. This idea came to me and I paused in the middle of my list making. I imagined my mom making a delicious mug of hot chocolate and plopping two fat, fluffy, scratch made mallows into her drink. She’d sit down in front of her fireplace and Christmas tree and take a sip of the Greatest Cup of Hot Chocolate in the History of the World. And that would be it! I closed my eyes and pictured my dearest loved ones succumbing to similar fates at the hand of that victorious combination: my marshmallows and Godiva’s cocoa. In one fell swoop I’d repay all of the sweetness, warmth, and comfort that the people who loved me most had shown as they helped me pack up half a house of belongings, and purchase new bedroom furniture, and learn how to flirt again, and put my heart back together.
So you know, no pressure.
I read the instructions several times before starting. The making of the marshmallow fluff went off without a hitch. I managed to dirty more of my kitchen utensils than ever before with sticky, sugary, mallow goo, but it tasted like heaven and, hey, I’d successfully produced a pan of smooth, snowy white, lighter than air marshmallow batter! The penultimate step was upon me; it was time to add some drops of red food coloring to make the signature swirls.
Thinking about it now, I’m still not sure what compelled me to use quite so much food coloring. Maybe I declared victory too early, the batter was just so good. Maybe I caved under pressure. Maybe I lost focus because I was singing along to Chris Isaak’s “Forever Blue” too loudly. Maybe I’m overeager. Whatever the reason, I overdid it. I applied the drops quickly in evenly spaced rows across the entire surface of my pristine layer of marshmallow fluff. Toothpick in hand, I started swirling.
The food coloring immediately began eating through the soft candy. Eroding it like acid, the little red droplets sank through the surface, making tunnels through the sugar. Neighboring drops merged to form pools. I began to despair. Biting my lip and clenching my teeth I tried to work faster, lamenting that I’d opted not to work in smaller sections. Why wasn’t that included in the recipe’s instructions! Damn that shoddy recipe!
By the time I reached the last row I had a tray of marshmallow fluff that looked like an axe murderer had stood over it while hacking twenty people to death. No longer a smooth cloud-like pillow, it was a jagged pan of pink slime. A bloody, gory monstrosity, unfit for human consumption. Always optimistic I thought, “Maybe once it cools it’ll be alright?” and placed it gingerly in my fridge, hoping for some kind of late night fridge miracle.
The next morning I entered my kitchen on tiptoe, fingers crossed, and opened the fridge to discover that the slime had not so miraculously cooled to rubber. I tipped the pan into the garbage and made some coffee. As I filled my sink with hot soapy water to scrub the now petrified mallow remains off my cookware, I said, “At least my kitchen smells nice and pepperminty. And it’s the thought that counts, right? Next year I’m just making pies. Pies are way easier than candy.”
Famous last words!
