How to Roast a Marshmallow

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Place on a long stick and rotate marshmallow evenly within the orange flame of the campfire. If it catches fire, blow it out. Continue roasting until outer skin of marshmallow bubbles and turns brown. Eat off of stick. Outside should be crusty brown and the inside should spill like white liquid silk.

An American Experience

I taught my daughter the secret to marshmallow roasting while camping outside of Bryce National Park in Utah. We hiked here and in several other national parks this week, including Zion, Grand Canyon, Lake Powell and Sedona. All majestic, magnificent and true American treasures. What better places to learn the nuances of roasting marshmallows, avoiding the charred black nugget. And what better places to truly feel and understand the diversity, beauty and greatness of Amercia.

Light and Stone

It is hard to express the feeling you get upon first seeing the Grand Canyon. Danny Glover (as Simon) said it pretty well in the zeitgeist chic movie Grand Canyon:
“You ever been to the Grand Canyon? Its pretty, but that’s not the thing of it. You can sit on the edge of that big ol’ thing and those rocks… the cliffs and rocks are so old… it took so long for that thing to get like that… and it ain’t done either! It happens right there while your watching it…When you sit on the edge of that thing, you realize what a joke we people really are… what big heads we have thinking that what we do is gonna matter all that much… thinking that our time here means didly to those rocks. Just a split second we have been here, the whole lot of us. That’s a piece of time so small to even get a name.”

A Slightly Different World

Seeing the Grand Canyon, in all of its timelessness (2 billion years) and wideness (10 miles) and jaw dropping, technicolor glory, somehow alters your life’s compass. Sober or not, questions you may ask yourself include:

  • Why was I put on this good earth for this “split second” of a lifetime?
  • What trail will I leave behind?
  • What spirit will I give to the places that I have lived?

Or, you may simply realize that your daily stressors are just that: momentary and meaningless in the long run. And if the American southwest teaches us anything, it is that there is a very long run. True, bother and stress merit attention, but they should also be boxed and tucked away so that you spend more time on things that really matter…like roasting the perfect marshmallow.