Maple Syrup

Yes. Maple Syrup.

I love maple syrup.

Last year, with the help of a colleague from whom we bought our first house and the owner of our favorite local foods shop, we tapped our trees and gave it a shot. We tapped late and ended up with little more than some maple sugar and a tablespoon of syrup to call our own, but this year, I promised to do better.

Enter the 2016 maple syrup project. I managed to work out a deal with said colleague to loan another colleague (and very dear friend) his authentic and legit maple syrup boiler system. Last weekend, my friend and I made twenty taps in his shop, drilled his maple trees, hung the twenty or so buckets I picked up on the way, and waited for the sap to flow. Then I headed back to my own house in the suburbs and, with antique taps gifted by that same shop owner mentioned above, and tapped my own wee sugar maples. After a few days, I managed to collect two gallons of sap.

The plan this spring, as March approaches, is to help my friend boil the sap I collect and his own, and produce some serious syrup. But yesterday, as I was stuck in the house with freezing temperatures and snowy roads, I decided to break out the brew pot, dump the sap in, and see what happens.

About six hours later, I had six ounces of the most delicious, dark syrup. And I'm not sharing.

Except with my babies, who want half of it for breakfast.