Smores!

Much has been written about our friend Alex (Tour Guide De jour) but one thing that we may not have mentioned is that she is an avid desert fan (Perhaps to a degree that I have never seen!) I won’t go into details on some of her legendary desert stories, but will say that she is nearly as passionate about sweets as she is about the art and history of Florence.

One day in October, we were touring with Alex when she asked us about a desert that she had seen in the movies “I don’t know what you call it, but it has marshmallows and I always see people in the movies sitting around a fire when they eat them!” “SMORES” we responded! “Are they real she asked? I mean, do people really eat them?” At that moment Anna made a promise that she would bring all the necessary ingredients back from the California over the holidays to treat Alex to her first batch of Smores.

One night in February we met for Pizza and then headed back to the castle for desert. The only thing that I could not figure out was where were we going to roast them? We do have a fire place in the castle but had never used it and the owner “Massimo” had asked me to be extra careful with the fire place as the oil on canvass painting above it was worth a lot of money. Those that know me, know that I am not exactly a wiz when it comes to fire (I’ve had a few near fatalities that Tim Dunigan can tell you about!). I checked the flute the best I could (It’s a very strange one that is hooked to a chain) and was certain that it was open. I even poked a stick high up into the vent and hit no resistance. We were all convinced that it must be open. Well it wasn’t, and the result was some serious smoldering that left us scrambling to remove the well adhered painting from above the fireplace and let in the cold fresh air from outside!

Anna, the ever creative one, concluded that the toaster oven was the next best thing (And to her credit, it did work quite well), but there is just something not quite right about a bunch of people huddled around a toaster oven in the kitchen with their skewers, graham crackers and Hershey Chocolate bars!

Alex certainly new nothing different and suffice to say that she loved her first encounter with smores! (See photos)