Harvey column: Hot chocolate

I love hot chocolate, but I think I love marshmallows more. I have no patience for people who make a rich, steaming mug of cocoa only to plop in two or three cursory marshmallows. If two or three marshmallows are good, aren't eight or 10 better?

I am thinking this while navigating a Food Lion so packed with people that my husband Will decided he would rather wait in the absurdly long gas station line across the street than fight the crowd inside. I, on the other hand, like the chaos of people panicking at the sight of the empty shelves where the bread and milk used to live. It is a charming Southern snow tradition.

Besides, I'm not here for milk and bread. The only thing I care about is those fluffy little bags of Jet-Puffed marshmallows that, when added to Swiss-Miss, make the flavor sing. Drinking cocoa without marshmallows is like eating cake without icing — totally pointless.

Thirty-two minutes, three bags of marshmallows and a swipe of the MVP card later, I am climbing into Will's gassed-up Tahoe, pausing in the freezing night air to breathe in the clean smell of impending snow. At this moment, I feel sorry for people who live in places where it snows all the time. They don't get to savor the anticipation of a few measly inches of "wintry mix."

Saturday morning, I flung open my bedroom curtains to find that the wintry mix actually had transpired and, even better, quite a bit of it was snow! As is acceptable on Southern snow days, I got right back in bed.

If I lived in Montana, the three inches of snow would be so blas that instead of snuggling back up under a mound of down comforters, I would be getting dressed, getting in the car and proceeding to go to the gym, the grocery store, the paint store and all of other places on my to-do list.

Instead, now, I am bundled up in my snow gear, walking down the street with Will to watch our friends' kids sled down what is quite possibly the only hill in the resounding flatness that is Eastern North Carolina.

Seeing the joy on their faces as they fly down the hill brings back some of my most treasured childhood memories.

Speed-dialing the Salisbury-Rowan County School System number praying for the recorded voice to say "There will be no school tomorrow." Sledding way past bedtime with good friends. The light of the moon creating an austere glow on the nighttime snow. The dryer filled with dozens of pairs of soggy socks, getting warm and dry for the next stint in the snow. Mom spending the entire day making fresh batches of hot cocoa, while hoards of children ventured in and out to get warm.

I'm sure plenty of people in Colorado are sitting by their roaring fires today, wrapped in Snuggies (it was the hottest infomercial item of 2009, after all) and slurping hot chocolate, just like I am. They probably have equally fond memories of surprise days out of school and good friends with whom to spend them.

But they can't be enjoying this sabbatical from daily duties as much as I am. Maybe it's because they have snow all the time. Maybe it's because they don't get to enjoy the fuss and fun of preparing for a little wintry mix. I'm pretty sure, though, it's because their cocoa needs a few more marshmallows.

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Kristy Woodson Harvey, a graduate of Salisbury High School, lives in New Bern.