Grade A Love

I have always had a sweet tooth.  I have this strange fondness for some of the worst sugar out there-ask my staff and they’ll let you know about my sugar stash at the hostess stand: sour worms, caramel bulls eyes, Twizzlers.  I am almost embarrassed by my liking of these cheap, horrible sweets, but I do, nonetheless, not like- but LOVE them.

So where does this sweet tooth take its root?  I can only blame one thing, (and one thing that I do have to be a bit particular about)…maple syrup.  My household will never have Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth’s or some sort of plastic-tasting-off color-having-syrup-substitute. I suppose I buy cheap candy so I can save my pennies for the  “real stuff” when it comes to maple syrup.  Sorry folks if the cheap syrup does it for you, I won’t be joining you for pancakes or French toast any time soon.

Born in Vermont, it only makes sense that I should have a special liking for the glory of amber gold.  One of my few memories of my father before he passed away, were his breakfast feasts in Vermont.  My dad was the king of pancakes.  He would make such big pancakes that they draped over our plates- floppy, warm and slightly crispy. He then would roll them up like Taquitos and smother them in butter and local maple syrup before cutting them into pieces to fit into our still very small mouths.  It was a Sunday tradition and the best morning of the week by far.

But what really made me love the stuff was hot shot glasses of maple syrup freshly made.  My father would take me and my sister down the dirt road we lived on, and hoist us up on his knee so we could stick our pudgy fingers into the aluminum buckets nailed onto the maple trees.  We’d dip our fingers in and taste the sweet sap from the trees-sugar water at its finest. The sap house was right down the road. It was nothing much-practically a shed-but what a memory.  Walking into the small, cramped and aging sugarhouse, I was taken by the heat- practically suffocating, as if walking into a sauna. Then, once our lungs adjusted to the steamy air, we were served a ladle full of piping maple syrup into little shot glasses-bottoms up!  That pure taste of fresh, warm maple sugar- now that was something Aunt Jemima or Mrs. Butterworth’s couldn’t hold a candle to.