Pancakes and "Real" Maple Syrup

I have so many wonderful cookbooks on my shelves, but there are times when
I want something tried and true and that's when I reach for that old, tattered
Betty Crocker.  It was my first cookbook when I was newly married. I guess
after thirty years every thing begins to show it's age.

This morning I decided to make pancakes, so off the shelf it came.  It's been
used so much that all I have to do is turn it on it's side and let it fall open to
the right place.  Can you see all the food stains on it?

This is another page that I frequently use.  This is where I learned to make
pie crust.  Pancakes and piecrust are two things every cook should learn to
make from scratch.  Don't you think?

So I whipped up some buttermilk, whole wheat pancakes.  Some plain,
for the man who likes his unadulterated.

And some with Cindy's blueberries, that have been stashed in my freezer,
for the girl who likes her pancakes completely adulterated (berries, nuts,
pumpkin, eggnog, lemon poppyseed, chocolate chips - you name it.  I"ll
probably like it).

Now up to this point, things are looking like any old average pancake day,

right?  But Santa had brought this and stuck it in my husband's christmas 

stocking.  Isn't Santa soooo cool?!?

Today we decided to have a little maple syrup tasting.  It is that time of the

year you know, when the sugar houses are boiling up the sap and turning it

into this liquid gold.  This has been a rough season for the syrup, because 

most of the syrup producing states have had such a mild winter and spring.

Syrup that is usually always a little pricey, will probably be extra pricey this

year.  That means that when you have some of the real thing,  you better

really enjoy it.  And we do.

I sat the little bottles in a row and we took turns tasting each one, trying to

decide our favorite.  The Vermont fancy is the lightest and has a mild flavor.

It's usually the most expensive.  The maple flavor is very subtle.  The second

bottle is the Grade A Medium Amber.  It has a characteristic maple flavor and

is good for table use.  The third bottle is the Grade A Dark Amber, which has 

a heartier maple flavor.  The last bottle is the Grade B syrup.  As you can

imagine, it has the strongest maple flavor and is good for use in cooking.

After tasting each one, with murmurings of "mmmm, this is so good", we

were ready to declare our favorites.  I liked the Grade A Medium Amber

the best.  Mark said he liked them all, but probably liked the darker ones, 

because he could taste more of the maple flavoring.  Both of us decided it

made us miss living in Vermont, where we were introduced to the "real 

thing" and have never gone back to the "corn syrup/artificial maple flavored" 

varieties.  Yes, living in Vermont made us syrup snobs. 

All this maple tasting is making me sentimental about our time in the Green

State : when we had our first little baby, were dirt poor, shared a car, walked

a lot and spent our weekends discovering quaint little towns with village

greens and covered bridges.   Maybe that deserves a post all its own.