Childish creations stand the test of time
Terry Bursey, otherwise known as the Food Dude, is a Newfoundland chef transplanted to Ontario who enjoys putting his mark on traditional recipes and inventing new tasty treats with unexpected ingredients.
One of my favourite childhood cartoon characters had a very impressionable catch phrase: “Take chances, make mistakes and get messy!”
This always hit home for me as a kid and in many ways, stuck with my psyche well into adulthood. Nowhere is this fact more apparent than the kitchen, where since the age of nine or 10, you could usually find me passing away the boring hours by making my 67th variation of box mac and cheese and cut-up hotdogs or melting down marshmallows to stick eight different kinds of crushed cookies together. To be honest, I still sometimes do that and with much weirder stuff. But I digress.
This isn’t about “Present Terry.” This next recipe is a blast from the past in more ways than one. I was lucky enough to keep journals throughout childhood and came across this entry for May 17, 1999. Apologies in advance for the lack of grammar and punctuation but in order to keep things authentic, I thought I’d relate it exactly as it is, in this old yellow exercise book.
Here is what I wrote that day 20 years ago:
Terry Carson Bursey The First of Dover,
This morning started off badly with yet another tormented bout of coughing because of this stupid flu I got. I went downstairs to get something to eat while I watched The Magic School bus but there wasn’t a thing fit to eat for cartoons in the cubbards. Jack took all the white parts of my oreo cookies again so I took back all of the chocolate eggs he had in the bowl from Easter and I melted them down. I put that over some marshmellos and took the black oreo cookie parts and scrunched them up and rolled it all around in that and made new cookies for the fridge and cartoons. I tried putting one in the mikerowave but it exploded and was really hot and made a big mess but no one was home exept Uncle Tom and he’s deaf so he never heard the cookie explode so I didn’t care until I remembered Nan. When Nan came home and saw it I thought she would have a copper kitten but she was happy because I cleaned up my own mess and now there was cookies. They were good to eat with Magic Schoolbus. I’m gonna call em dirtblocks because they look like blocks of dirt and rocks but good to eat.
Goodbye Journal.
Wow. Just wow, right? You get the idea though. I was a weird kid. At any rate, Nan claims those cookies were delicious and it was pretty easy for me to recreate them based on the description in my old journal. I have to say, I’m proud of that weird little kid for creating this weird cookie, because at the risk of tooting my own childhood horn, it’s actually incredibly tasty!
DIRTBLOCKS
1 regular-sized bag of rainbow/ coloured marshmallows
2 cups dark chocolate chips 2 tbsp margarine
1⁄ 2 cup heavy cream
2 cups Oreo crumbs
Directions
Heat margarine in the microwave for 15 to 20 seconds and stir to melt completely. In a large bowl, add coloured marshmallows and stir in the margarine until marshmallows are well coated. In a sauce pan on medium heat, melt chocolate with the cream while stirring continuously until smooth. Wait 10 minutes and pour over the marshmallows. Blend with a rubber spatula until well coated and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spread until evenly distributed at about three to four inches thick. Sprinkle Oreo crumbs evenly on top and lightly pat it to help hold it in place. Refrigerate for 30 minutes and cut into desired portions.