Good Press

This spring I discovered Kraft Jet-Puffed SwirlMallows in Caramel & Vanilla. Eaten by hand from the bag, they have a slight burnt-sugar quality. I like them. When you toast them over a stove burner or a bonfire's flames, they seem to burn faster than regular marshmallows. I didn't mind. But a "gourmet" marshmallow needed a little better treatment. So I got a dark chocolate bar and elevated the outdoors experience. I used graham crackers but I wonder if shortbread would be fitting or too over-the-top. The only place I have found these new marshmallows at Foodland Fresh in Kingwood. Last time I looked, they didn't have them, though. If you can find them, enjoy them -- Happy Fourth of July!

When you live in the home of the oldest Fourth of July celebration in West Virginia, America's birthday is as big as Christmas. Making homemade root beer so it's ready for the star-spangled festivities is a tradition my husband's grandmother started. Since Grandma Flossie moved from Terra Alta, my sister-in-law Gloria has tried to replicate the taste she grew up with and preserve the tradition. Through trial-and-error she tries every year to duplicate the process. "If it doesn't turn out this year, the tradition dies," Gloria said in 2004, but I didn't believe her. That year she let me watch her home-brew efforts in my mother-in-law's kitchen. It is the process as much as the recipe that makes or breaks the root beer. Leave the bottles on their sides too long and the fermenting yeast will build up too much pressure, causing the bottles to burst. Stand them up to slow the process too soon and the root beer will be flat. Gloria and ...