By Brad Sears, the New Hampshire Geezer.
Ya I know, I am supposed to write about chassis and power trains and stuff, and my Blog is due in on Monday. But after just now coming back from Bennie Nelsons Sugar house and my first taste of the 2008 Maple Sugar stuff I could not keep my fingers off this danged keyboard. Let me tell ya bunkie, with the heavy snow fall this winter and them warm days and cold nights hereabouts that stuff is Wicked Good.
Bennie and Becky are smart ones, as they tap trees on the sugar bush above the house and then tube it to a tank behind the sugar house. Now that sugar house has been there a couple of centuries I guess and the old arch, that is what the fire box is called, is a family heirloom and made of cast iron. Now the Nelsons still burn wood for the fire used to boil the sap and it takes a lot of wood to boil down 10 gallons of sap to make one quart of good pure New Hampshire syrup. That is a 40:1 ratio.
So, with the sap runnin’ and the boil going on it is time to take a ride over to Garfield’s Smoke House and latch onto a pound or so of thick slab hickory smoked bacon and then stop and pick up a dozen or so fresh eggs.
Saturday morning this old farm house is going to smell some sweet I’ll tell ya. For this treat I’ll fire up the old wood cooking stove in the kitchen, put the griddle on the place on the top that will give me medium heat. Then the bacon will dance and sizzle while filling the house with the best country breakfast smell in the world.
Once the bacon is done set it on a oven proof place and put it in the oven with the door open a smidgen to keep warm. Pour off most of the fat, but keep enough on the griddle to keep the cakes from sticking whilst the cook. Now take and move the griddle to a medium hot place on the stove so that a drop of water on the griddle will dance a little jig and then dissappear.
Now just about any pancake batter will work cause it is the other stuff that makes it good eats. I usually put about a half a cup of them frozen Maine blueberries into the batter (enough for two folks, me and Lucy). You have to use the small wild Maine wild berries to get the right mixture. The big berries just don’t make the grade for hot cakes. Now spoon about a quarter cup of batter on the griddle per cake and cook until the top of the cake has pock marks all over it and then flip it. The cooked surface should be golden brown. Cook the other side and keep warm until they are all cooked.
Now mister man, let me tell ya, served with warm real New Hampshire maple Syrup, butter, good hot coffee, that’s a Wicked Good breakfast.
Ya, ok, the next post will be that chassis stuff.