everybody knows smores now
I remember a few years ago when I made my first perfect smore. It was before the wonderful fireplace we have now by the deck, before we even had built our first fireplace out in the yard: back when we were burning wood in the Coleman kettle grill. Innocent days indeed! Smores weren't so common in our life back then, so when I finally made a good one I was very excited, and took a picture. That's natural, I think. But now well-made smores are to be expected in our yard, since we make them on average of a couple times a month all year round, and we don't take pictures of all of them.
And it's not just us now! One of the few upsides of this pandemic is that lots more people have realized they need to have a place in their yard to have a fire—nice for entertaining outdoors at any time, and essential in the colder months. So naturally they're all upping their marshmallow-roasting game too. Last night we were circled around a charcoal grill with friends, and all the kids turned out satisfactory smores even in those somewhat difficult conditions (there's always flames with charcoal, apparently). I wouldn't have chosen these months of isolation and fear, but if we're dealing with a pandemic at least we get to enjoy lots of chocolate, marshmallow, and graham crackers to ease the pain.