led me into the bathroom

I recently read about W.H. Auden’s theory that a writer’s mind has three personality types. They aren’t necessarily the same personality types, so I’ve been trying to figure out who mine are. I believe that one of my personality types is a strict, elderly schoolteacher, fond of rules, lectures, and corporal punishment, constantly pursing her lips and shaking her head disapprovingly. When I was a teenager, one of my friends referred to me as “Mommy,” because I was always the one to scold her “wrongdoings” and also to offer sound advice. I’d like to think that I’ve tamed the schoolteacher a bit as I’ve gotten older, but she often rears her judgmental head fabric labels.

The second personality housed within my mind is a petulant, stubborn, and mischievous child, probably left over from my own petulant, stubborn, and mischievous childhood. This personality is the one who caused me, this weekend, to pout and whine and thrash about when it came time for me to take a shower, to sulkily stomp up the stairs to take said shower, and to hide on the floor next to the bed for twenty minutes instead of taking a shower. At which point my husband came up, found me hiding, and led me into the bathroom.

Because I’m a food writer, I’d like to think the third is an extremely fat chef. In my head, that personality is male, but that’s probably just because I’ve internalized the sexism in the culinary field. In any case, he is jolly and eats with unabashed zeal. He also has a jiggly double chin and a German accent. Go figure. I blame him for thinking that instead of dipping each Oreo into a glass of milk, it would be a good idea to just dump a package of Oreos into a bowl and pour milk over it, then eat them with a spoon.

Anyway, thanks to Fat Chef, I decided I needed more s’mores in my life, so I created this tart. I contemplated using mini marshmallows on the top, but since I try to do things from-scratch as much as possible, I made my own marshmallow topping. I still used Hershey’s milk chocolate and Honey Maid graham crackers for the filling and crust, because I’m a purist. No, they aren’t paying me to say that. Use whatever brands you want. I’m just saying mortgage calculator.

By the way, the marshmallow topping is basically the same recipe used to make homemade marshmallows (see my S’mores Marshmallow Pops post). You have to work quickly and you will get hella sticky. I opted for this over a meringue, though, because I can always taste the egg whites in meringue, and marshmallows don’t taste like egg whites, obvi.

I also did something amazing because I’m a freaking genius. I put liquid smoke up in hurr. And smoked salt. Who says you can’t have a campfire taste right from the oven? Not Fat Chef! He’s like, “Ja! Wir stecken liquid smoke aus in hier!” (I’m sorry, high school German teachers. I don’t think we covered this sentence in class. Additionally: I’m sorry, Germans. Your country is beautiful bvi offshore company.)