Yesterday in the late afternoon, after my husband had finished grilling a pile of meat, we decided to introduce AJ to the peculiarly American culinary delight known as the s�more.

1. ASSEMBLE YOUR INGREDIENTS.

AJ volunteered to get the marshmallows out of the cupboard. He will always volunteer for any job involving marshmallows. I got the chocolate bars out of their secret hiding place � as soon as I remembered exactly where that secret hiding place was. Then I went in search of graham crackers. We were out. Instead I pulled out a packet of weird Polish sandwich cookies that AJ had selected on our last visit to the European market. I unscrewed the chocolate cookies, scooped out the vanilla filling with a spoon (to be licked by AJ) and laid them out. We broke the chocolate into squares, sampling a few along the way, and laid the squares on top of the cookies on a plate. We were ready!

2. PREPARE YOUR SKEWERS.

Aside from the fact that we don�t actually own any proper skewers, as anyone who�s ever sampled a s�more knows, the correct way to make one is using a found object. I had done some serious pruning of a drooping honeysuckle bush earlier in the day, so AJ and I raided the brushpile for a couple of long, straight, green twigs. Perfect! While I headed back to the grill with mine, AJ had an invisible swordfight on the lawn with his. He arrived breathless a few minutes later to inform me that the dragon would not be bothering us. �Good,� I said. �We don�t have to share our s�mores with him, anyway.�

3. TOAST THE MARSHMALLOWS EVENLY UNTIL BROWN.

I showed AJ how to push a soft pillow of marshmallow gently over the end of the stick without disemboweling it. With two marshmallows on each stick, we commenced toasting. The coals were very hot. Our faces turned nearly as red as the coals, but the marshmallows quickly gained an even brown color. Perfection!

I have rarely seen such perfect specimens of toasted marshmallows. As a child, I was always in too much of a hurry to wait for that particular transformation, preferring instead to set my marshmallows on fire, extinguish them, then quickly pop the melted centers out of the charred exterior directly into my mouth. Given AJ�s penchant for fastidiousness, I was pretty sure blackened marshmallow wouldn�t pass muster, no matter how exciting the conflagration.

4. ASSEMBLE THE SANDWICHES AND SERVE IMMEDIATELY.

Carefully, using only the tips of my fingers, I slid each hot marshmallow onto a slab of chocolate and covered it with another cookie. They looked like very fancy moon pies. We stared at them for a minute then dug in. Within seconds, AJ had a sticky face, sticky hands, sticky everything, his tongue stretching at the corners of his mouth to reach every last crumb.

And that, my friends, is what summer tastes like.

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