Spring Break Part 1

We've had an exciting few weeks! My mom came out to visit during Mario's spring break. We had a great time with her! The weather here in Boston was pretty terrible her first weekend here, so we spent some time letting Mario study and letting Grandma get reacquainted with Joshua. On Saturday, there was a slight break in the rain and we took advantage of the opportunity to do a quintessential New England spring activity - maple sugaring. There are "sugar shacks" scattered all over New England where maple sugar farmers tap their maple trees in the spring to harvest the sap, which they then boil down into pure maple syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of maple sap (which looks and tastes just like water when it comes out of the tree) to make one gallon of maple syrup. The sugar shack we went to is called Parkers Maple Barn and has won award after award for the food served at their on-site restaurant. Their sugar shack (and it was an actual shack) was pretty awesome, and surprisingly small. Unlike a lot of local maple sugaring farms, they boil their sugar over a wood fire. When we walked in, we were hit by a huge cloud of steam made of the sweet fumes of boiling maple sugar mixed with the warm, homey smell of a super-hot wood stove. It was absolutely divine. In true New England style, the man tending the fire saw me trying to capture the place on "film" and let me through the safety cords to take these shots. Pretty cool, huh?

Here's their super-high-tech bottling apparatus. That would be a traditional truck stop-style coffee dispenser.




After our maple sugar steam bath, we visited the restaurant for some fresh maple sugar donuts, maple-glazed ribs, maple walnut pancakes, and a maple hamburger with Virginia ham. We weren't disappointed.

On the way home, we saw these sap collection buckets just off the road. This is one of my favorite shots of the day.

I found some New York sirloin on sale the week before Mom got here.  We called on Tyler's Ultimate again for some inspiration and came up with this.  We had pan-seared steak with oven-roasted Russet potatoes tossed with parsley, olive oil, and fresh parmesan.  After we seared the steak, we cooked some mushrooms in the drippings and then made a pan sauce with reduced red wine and heavy cream.