Is there any combination of food more perfect than this?

The answer is no.

Don’t even bother arguing with me on this one. You can keep your fine wine and cheese, your bagel with smear and lox, your perfect steak and potatoes. I will take my s’more, gooey and sticking to my fingers, tasting faintly of smoky summer evenings and crisp fall nights. You can have your delicate pastry and espresso, your fish and chips, your spinach and artichokes. I will take my s’more, composed of the most generic grocery store brand ingredients, transformed into the trinity of outdoor cuisine by the miracle of a fire and a un-bent coat hanger.

I will take a s’more over just about anything . When we went camping last year, only to have our beach camping overshadowed by horrible weather and cold, I ate s’mores about every hour and still felt like I had done all I intended to do in camping. When we returned there were still extra materials so I took to making s’mores over the gas burners. I threatened to do this again on our Colorado trip, much to the dismay of everyone else in the cabin. They threw out warnings like”They will taste like gas!!” and I was all like “Um, so what? I WILL DO IT IF I HAVE TO,” until James and my brothers saved me from myself and built a fire.

On a regular basis I contemplate Big Problems of Life. Things like why is the DC metro so inefficient, why can’t my neighbors master parallel parking (Dear Residents of our street: If you leave four feet of space in front of AND behind your car, you effectively cut in half the number of parking spaces on our street.), why do people think their turn signals are decorative, how come Starbucks discontinues the salted caramel beverages when there are still three months of winter left, and how can I convince everyone to eat s’mores in the absence of a campfire. In regards to the last one, I have spent quite some time on ye old Internet gathering s’mores in alternative forms. I’m sure you have passed many a sleepless night wondering how you could revision the s’more to make it more convenient for your next covered dinner (if you aren’t from the Bible Belt, that’s an awesome dinner party where everyone brings a different sort of casserole, most of your meal is held together by cheese, and deviled eggs always make an appearance), and I’m glad that I can share this list with you and return your repose to its otherwise untroubled state.

Here are some of the best I’ve seen, though I should give the disclaimer that I haven’t actually made all of these yet:

• S’mores ice cream: I am planning on busting out my ice cream maker this week and trying this because recipes from this website have never let me down and I watched the writer working on this recipe via instagram posts for several weeks. I might have licked the phone at least once. (Shameless plug: this is my favorite food blog ever because of the writing, which usually has me laughing and crying by the end of almost every post. She’s the only blogger that I have ever written an email to, begging them to write a book and she just announced that she has started writing one and I am PUMPED.)
• S’mores bars: These are probably the most simple recreation of the original, and there is something to be said for simplicity. The recipe was also recommended by my friend Rachel and she understands how I feel about s’mores enough not to trifle with me.
• S’mores NUTELLA bars: It’s a s’more. Plus Nutella. ‘Nuff said. After my freshman year of college, one of the professors had us over to his house to burn all our notes/paper drafts and make s’mores over the ashes. Somehow a jar of Nutella materialized and I was able to try this combo. It was delicious, but really messy, so I feel that the bar form is probably an improvement.
• Gooey Red-velvet s’mores bars: Now, I am generally unimpressed with red-velevet things. I feel that red-velvet is like the hot girl on the dessert shelf and everyone thinks she’s so great but she is really just kind of average with some fancy lipstick. But, this recipe included “gooey” in the title, which intrigues me, as gooeyness is already implied in the s’mores itself. I am hoping it is like that pumpkin gooey cake that I devoured all winter.
• S’mores fudge: If there is a fudge form of anything, you have an almost moral obligation to find it and try it.
• S’mores cake: I love cake. You know those people at weddings who say things like “I just don’t like cake”? I always secretly think they are lying/ just haven’t had a good one yet. This is akin to the response I get when I say that I hate beer, ultimate frisbee, and horror movies. “You just haven’t tried a  good one, ” they say as I gag; or “You would love it if someone taught you,” they insist, as I get hit in the face repeatedly; or “This one is actually artistic and worth it,” they promise, and then I spend months having nightmares.  But I am pretty sure that s’mores + cake would convince anyone. There is also a Smitten Kitchen recipe for s’mores cake, but it is in the cookbook rather than on the website. It will most likely be as delicious as all of her other recipes and you should all buy her book, because it is like a gorgeous glossy coffee table book and a cookbook had a perfectly adorable love child that I can’t put down.
• S’mores macarons: I am actually kind of opposed to the theory of this, just like the thought of a bacon maple macaron makes me want to barf  (expect a post on the integrity of macarons and the downside of globalization soon), but my “Any s’more is a good s’more” philosophy wins out over my disgust and I have to include it.

And of course, s’mores cookies.

When we were in Banff for our honeymoon last year I found a recipe for s’mores cookies in a newspaper that I ripped out to try eventually. I finally got around to making it a couple weeks ago. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t as good as an actual s’more, but I’m not sure if you can improve on the original. (One exception: wouldn’t it be awesome to make s’mores with Petit Écolier cookies? This stroke of pure genius came to me when I was trying to make s’mores in a poorly lit area and kept dropping the chocolate off the graham. It’s a pretty great idea, I know. Let the record show that I thought of it first when it eventually goes viral and starts showing up on Pinboards everywhere.) But if you aren’t a huge fan of s’mores, then you might find these cookies an improvement. At least, that is how James felt.  In any case, I will say that it is absolutely imperative that you eat these cookies warm or the mallow gets really tough. However, they do reheat pretty well.

S’mores cookies, from an article in some Canadian paper. (I am pretty sure that the person who wrote the article is the food blogger from here.)

• 2.5 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 100g + dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 100g+ milk chocolate, broken into pieces
• 13 graham crackers, broken into small pieces
• Bag large or small marshmallows

1. Preheat oven to 375 and grease cookie sheets.
2. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Et aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and mix until combined. Add vanilla and incorporate.
4. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture. Fold in chocolate and graham cracker chunks.
5. Place dough by heaping tablespoons on cookie sheets. Gently flatten cookies with your fingers and press three small mallows, or one large mallow cut in half, into cookies.
6. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until mallow is melted and slightly golden.

Are you all s’mores fans? Know of any other good s’mores desserts?