Marshmallows and Song

I've been waking up to marshmallows lately.  Well, if by lately I mean the last 3 days.  The inspiration for this has of course been December birthdays.  Not mine, mind, but if you're gonna turn a year older in the bleak midwinter, you might as well do it while inhaling slightly updated childish delights such as marshmallows as a vehicle for hot chocolate.

So when somebody wise (or possibly evil) posted a Smitten Kitchen recipe for homemade cocoa on Facebook, and I stupidly clicked the attached link for springy fluffy marshmallows, and I realized a friend and classmate would be turning 29 (oh, to be 29 again!) in an appropriate time frame to guinea pig said recipes, what else was I supposed to do?  Alas, there are no pictures of any of this stuff in production because (what else?) I cobbled everything together around 9PM on a work night and ain't nobody got time to clean marshmallow goo and chopped semisweet chocolate off hands to grab a camera after a long day at work.  Whether the chocolate mix was a success I cannot answer because I gave it all away.  As for the marshmallows...

One thing I need to remember to put on my wish list: an electric mixer.  Stand mixer would be ideal, but honestly after building up Popeye biceps in my right arm trying to get the sugar mix to turn "white and fluffy and almost tripled in volume" I started to long for my slightly crappy Kalorik multi-purpose that got lost somewhere in my last move.  That said, the 'mallows might've turned out a bit denser because of the hand mixing.  The egg white portion came out lovely and peaky though, 'cause that was easy by comparison.  And the grace note?  (Because I used to be a "singer" and there's always a grace note.)  Um...whiskey.

Why there is a bottle of nice whiskey on the bottom shelf of my fridge is a story for someone else's grandkids.  It's sort of not even my whiskey, unless adverse possession rules get shortened in the case of food products.  But if it's booze and I'm making desserts, the temptation is undeniable.  So remember that line about using your choice of flavorings?  Screw the vanilla, mate.  Reach for the Glenfiddich.

You know you've done a proper job when your friend sniffs the gift bag and breaks into a shit-eating grin.  Because you've just brought booze to work.  Yep.

And now I've got a Ziploc bag of leftover whiskey marshmallows to pop in my (Irish cream flavored) coffee in the mornings.  Which is a dangerous combination, as it makes me prone to nostalgia and poetry.  (It would be songs, but I'll spare you the husky morning voice.)  Which is why I'm leaving off with a poem from my last few months in North Myrtle Beach.  Enjoy while I go lick the marshmallow residue out of my mug.

Wanderlust

I.

It merely is: the call of the morning star

too late or early, empty cracked highway at sunup

and the fear to close your eyes at the bend

for memories lost, or promise of loss to come,

rootless since rooted in all, the unspooling rope

of cosmos and microcosms dangling on a hope,

a dream of undivided attention, a fleeting eternity:

Is that the blank these tires grind, an unbeaten path,

a worn and wearing groove worth longing for?

II.

My favorite cloud is cirrus, wisped harbinger of change,

favorite sound the seashell's roar, a shifting secret

mirrored from nautilus chambers, favorite color

the turning of leaves, taste salted caramel

burnt dregs lingering like the aftermath of passion

so much unrequited, disappointed, bauble trophy

that at its purest could shake the bowers of gods.

I tire of familiarity, once-beloved smug cold embers

that I would, of my own gnarled hands, rekindle

though it be immolation, staring bewildered, silent

forevermore, remains of lifetimes, now as then as always

inert, without even the dream of awakening.

III.

This is not a rejection, love, my polyglot song,

no recrimination but invitation, to you alone,

whose face, not features but essence, remains etched

among those migratory stars I never cease to fly to.

How will you find me? The little dark woman

with untamed hair picking a way through sea-debris,

eyes attuned to the dance of tides, already distant:

the sea, the sky, the morning star, the myriad paths

twining multitudinous that lead from me to you.

Come, my love, the partner in my peregrinations,

let us answer, alone, together, the urgency of universes

forming colliding consuming consigning to gaseous flames

our own desire unslaked, like the draw of twin stars,

gravitational, a transfer not of light but of lighter spirit

that, bigger than we can hold, drags us in its undertow.