With the official start of summer still two weeks away, I feel as though I had a head start on the upcoming vacation season with a couple trips I took during the month of May.  Now, I am headed home to celebrate the college graduation of my nephew Zachary.  June’s weather in Kentucky is much different from the weather in Southern California, and I am very much looking forward to it, humidity and all.  I welcome the ease that summer travel permits.  Packing was a cinch, since shorts, sundresses, and flip flops are the only clothing needed for summer days in KY.  The higher temperature days will have me paying visits to my favorite confectionery for an ice ball, heavy with cherry syrup, decadently served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream at the bottom.  The balmy evening weather will conjure up memories of my childhood and a time when catching fireflies in mason jars was all a child needed as entertainment on a hot summer night.  And, as strange as this may sound, I wouldn’t mind if an evening thunderstorm rolls through while I am there.  Although I was terribly afraid of storms when I was a little girl, now that I am all grown up, I love the low roar of distant thunder as it approaches, waiting for the timing between the lightening and the bang to catch up with one another, followed by a fading away as both lightening and thunder march onto another location.
Although is isn’t apparent here on my blog, I have been doing a lot of baking lately.  This past Sunday we had a barbecue at our home so that family members could meet J’s new beau.  H made a delicious stuffed chicken on the grill and I finished the meal with a Chocolate Layer Cake and a Strawberry-Apricot Pie.  (If you haven’t tried that particular fruit combination, I highly recommend it.  The twosome would also be delightful in a cobbler.)  Then on Tuesday while the kids (who are now in there twenties but will forever be kids to me) were at the beach, I decided to bake some cookies for them to have warm from the oven when they got home.  This cookie covers nearly all the basis with its add-ins of dark chocolate, white chocolate, cornflakes, marshmallows, and nuts.  With summer in mind, I decided to top each cookie with a toasted marshmallow in honor of the infamous S’more cookie.  Expect a little dance to happen in your mouth as you bite into one of these conglomerate morsels.
Being away from blogging and my kitchen for a week is causing separation anxiety to set in.  I will be baking plenty at my sister’s house in preparation for the party but there will be little time to photograph and write.  I will be back soon, and until then, whip up a batch of these cookies for the kids in your life or the kid in you.

Source:  Inspired by Mariel Chua’s recipe in One Big Table