The Fluff Chronicles

In September of this year of someone’s Lord, 2014, I had to make whoopie pies for a large number of people to eat at a big ol’ fundraiser event, and in preparation for this I bought several jars of Marshmallow Fluff. This is weird stuff. I know it’s a Classic New England thing, but I never ate any, that I was aware of anyhow, until recently. When I had to start working on making whoopie pies for a hundred.

It wasn’t entirely clear to me how much Fluff I’d need, and I bought six jars of it — these are, I think, 18 oz. plastic tubs… it’s a lot of damned Fluff, is my point, and to make the whoopie pies I only needed one and a half tubs in the end (because you whip the Fluff with butter and sugar to make the filling, you don’t use it straight). Which means that since then, I’ve been keeping in the back of my mind: Ways to Use Up a Lot of Fluff.

Today I hit on one way and I killed one-half a jar that was sitting around sad and lonely in the cabinet. I made a pan of chocolate peanut butter swirl fudge. This called for 7 oz. of Fluff, which meant I still had a little bit left in the tub… and so, when I came home from school with my first grader in tow, and had to provide her with a snack, I uttered these very Yankee words: “How about a Fluffernutter sandwich?”

An item, mind you, which I did not know existed when I myself grew up here in Connecticut.

“What’s that?” said my curious daughter. “Peanut butter and Fluff,” I said. “Ooooooo yes!” she said, eyes aglow, as they say. I cut two slices of bread, slathered them with the peanut butter and the Fluff, and she gobbled it up. Then, as an EXTRA treat, I let her get a spoon and scrape out the last of the fudge from the pot. My six year old is now completely and utterly indebted to me: she cannot misbehave at all, because I have started her week off with, really, the best of all possible things.

I’m making chicken cacciatore for dinner tonight. That’s one of her favorite dinners, too, come to think of it. Really, everything’s coming up roses for this kid.

Am I allowed to sneak some fudge for myself after dinner?