Making Mole

It’s nail-biting time.

To be clear: this is not that lovely “Between Books” interval which author Ann Packer described so perfectly in her recent New York Times essay. So I haven’t just finished the final round of copy edits on a purchased, soon-to-be-published novel, I’m not casting about for a new project whilst planning a launch party, or purchasing boxes of “signings” pens.

I’m in that post-completed-manuscript-ecstasy/pre-accepted-for-publication hell.  In other words, I finished a new novel, revised it a few times, finally got the “thumbs up” from my agent (she’s a stickler, which is why I love her) and now she’s shopping it. Which feels a little scary this time around because the wonderful, wise editor for my last three books has left our publishing house, reportedly to join the circus (she was joking when she said that, but you never know …) so Baby Book and I are searching. For a new editor; possibly a new publishing house. We wait for the phone to ring.

I know there are authors out there who would use this “down time” as an opportunity to dive into a new project, and I have a little something I’ve been playing with for a while (see last week’s post and think: Australian Shepherds) but here’s the thing: I’m still living with these other characters. I’m still tinkering, still hearing their voices. I’m not ready to leave them behind and enter a new world, especially because … but no. Won’t say it. Won’t jinx it. Karma’s a B**** and I won’t tempt the publishing gods by suggesting anything about what might happen to Baby Book and what revision might follow.

So instead, I’m cleaning my office (Baby Book made a mess), updating my website, organizing closets and making mole poblano. From scratch.

Yeah, I said that to impress you. Mole poblano from scratch. It was on my Cooking Bucket List. Three types of Mexican chilies, Mexican chocolate laced with guajillo, herbs, seeds, spices, blending, rehydrating, sieving (is that a verb?) and hours of concentrated cooking time. I cranked Carlos Santana and a little Spanish fusion music while I worked, mostly because I love it but also because I’m pretty much a Spanish “fusion” with a little Irish thrown in, and while I can serve up some pretty good Cuban food and approach my mother’s arroz con pollo, I’m a total novice at Mexican food. So I needed a little cooking Karma, a little Carlos. We pretty much believe (and by “we” I mean my mom, my daughter and I) that what comes out of the oven or the skillet is a direct reflection of what’s going on in the cook’s heart and soul.

So please, dear lord, don’t let this mole suck. Because Baby Book and I need some good mojo right now.

(Note: the above pictured mole poblano got two enthusiastic thumbs up from the spouse! Kudos to chef Shannon Bard of Zapoteca in Portland, Maine. I used the recipe from her new book, “The Gourmet Mexican Kitchen.”)

Hitchhikers

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hitchhikers. I couldn’t finish my novels without them.

Let me explain.

First: these are metaphorical hitchhikers. The characters you see along the road on your writing journey. Which, to use another metaphor, is pretty much driving in the dark on a foggy night with the headlights on: you can only see about ten feet ahead, but if you keep going you’ll eventually reach your destination.

We like to think this is predictably linear, a planned plot clearly marked by lines you can see even in the dark. But that’s a lie. A sweet security blanket we cling to. Because even though the ten feet of road ahead appear straight, this highway is anything but. It curves. It dips. It angles sharply and narrows suddenly in places where the shoulder is studded with gravel or practically nonexistent or mere inches from a sheer drop. And you’re out there without a GPS or a smart phone app or even a map for goodness sake, and what the hell? What were you thinking, taking this on? I mean, this was supposed to be fun, right? A trip, a journey, possibly a vacation. Instead, it’s this trial of nerves, endurance, fortitude, faith and … yeah.

Sorry. I lapsed into metaphor. I know: writing is not parenting. Or marriage. Or even getting out of bed in the morning and putting one foot in front of the other until the day ends. It’s a job. It’s work. Creative work, true, but just that.

Right?

Second: picking up hitchhikers is dangerous. Let’s face it, sweet grandmothers carrying baskets of warm baked goods are not thumbing it on the road on cold foggy nights. These characters you see out there have knives in their backpacks. Evil intentions. You let them into your car, and you will most likely not survive.

Third: my advice is to pick them up anyway. Metaphorically, that is. Because the ride is going to be way more interesting now. Even if it kills you.

In every one of my novels an unexpected hitchhiker got into the car and started talking. Starting filling my ear with things I didn’t know, things I found fascinating. Before long, I started asking her questions. Asking for advice. Asking if he or she had any suggestions for alternate, more interesting routes.

Wow, did they ever. Not only did they suggest different routes; they suggested different destinations. Forget going to California, they said. Go left at the next light and head south to Texas. Ditch wine in Napa: we’re getting barbecue.

“But I don’t want barbecue,” I argued. “I love wine.”

“Trust us: you will love barbecue,” they insisted.

Here’s the thing: in writing, and in life, you just have to be open. Characters, real and imagined, cannot step into a closed heart or through a locked door. Let them in, and you might be in for some pain, but you might also be in for the trip of a lifetime.

In my first novel, Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, Mr. Beady was the hitchhiker. I thought he was simply an old man having dinner with the main character’s grandmother, but then he kept showing up and saying funny things. Next thing I knew, he was steering the plot and setting up the climax for the novel.

In my second novel, Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best, Eva the ballerina was the hitchhiker. She was simply supposed to be the main character’s best friend, but then she kept turning up in scenes. At one point, when my main character was about to head to Florida for summer camp and leave Eva behind in New Jersey, I commented to my daughter, “My editor is going to make me cut Eva. I’m leaving her in New Jersey while the plot moves to Florida. She doesn’t make sense.” My (wise) daughter sighed, grabbed a stack of her own young adult novels, and tossed them on my bed. “Clearly,” she said, “Eva doesn’t simply want to come along for the ride. She wants to tell her story. You need a two-narrator novel. Check these out.” The final, published novel indeed has two narrators, and Eva is one of them.

Finally, in Out of Nowhere, Myla the college volunteer is the hitchhiker. She was simply supposed to be the random person who directs the main character’s community service job. But she was cute. Funny. Flirty. Next thing I knew, she was knocking the main character right off his feet and inserting herself in chapters. Myla ends up being the solution to many of the main character’s problems.

The novel I’ve just finished (which I won’t name here because it’s still printing from my computer) for the longest time didn’t seem to have any hitchhikers, which worried me. It was not a good sign, I thought, that no one knocked on my car window, demanding to be let in for the ride.

Until late in the game. In the final third of the book a guy named Joe steps in. The room is dark, he’s pouring powerful drinks … and he meets one of my main characters. Suddenly, we’re walking into a room I didn’t even know existed ….

Let the hitchhiker in.

Moving Parts

I’m not a big fan of moving parts.  Not in real life, anyway.

 I like plans. I like on-time. I like predictable.  We “joke” that our family mantra is Stay in Your Rut, because our rut (aka, “tradition”) includes good things, like the annual trip to Bar Harbor and the seven Christmas cookies we always bake.

So I had more than the usual anxiety leading up to Thanksgiving this year, not only because the spouse and I had a looooong drive ahead of us to New York state (think: the northeast corridor on the busiest travel day of the year), where my parents live, but because our kids were spending the holiday together on the west coast. 

 This would involve our daughter travelling from a small town in Vermont to a small-ish airport in Vermont, flying to/changing in Philadelphia (all the seasoned travelers reading this just groaned), landing at LAX and connecting with her brother, who would expertly scoop her up at that busy airport in the still-coughing-beat-up-but-beloved-blue-Subaru and transport her back to his 20-something apartment in West Hollywood. 

Meanwhile, my sister, brother-in-law and three precious nieces were driving to NY from MA, and my brother and his wonderful brood were heading out from one location in NY to the other, while all over the news reports of fires, protests and tear gas in Ferguson were competing with Black Friday ads and hyperbolic weather reports about the approaching winter storm.

Serene I was not.  Too much of my family was on the move at the same time.

So when the first half of it all went smoothly (kids connected safely in Los Angeles where fun was had and turkey from Ralph’s was eaten) and at my parent’s house we were popping yet another cork on another really nice bottle of Pinot which someone had brought (my sibs have good wine taste) I didn’t think a thing of it when my phone chimed, indicating a text.  I happily scooped it up, anticipating a message from the kids.

But no, it was my friend from Maine.  Did you know, she queried, that we’ve had no power for 24 hours, none is anticipated for another two days and the temps might dip into the teens tonight?

            

My thoughts flew to all those still-raw Thanksgiving turkeys in Brunswick.  My shivering neighbors.  Then:  my mud room.  A poorly insulted extension of our otherwise solid house, where many pipes lead, including conduits to the washer/dryer and a gardener’s sink.

            

This is when predictable flew out the window.  Because our house was locked up tight and I had not hidden or given out copies of our keys, so no good Samaritan could go inside and fire up the wood stove and keep the pipes from freezing.  So with visions of water damage dancing in our heads, the spouse and I threw our bags in the car and began the long, dark, still slightly icy drive back to Maine.

            

Somewhere along I-84 I realized I had left the house keys on the counter of that chilly mudroom.  I do that, because we usually go in through the automatic garage doors.  Which, when the power is out, don’t work.  I broke this cheery news to the spouse as we drove, and to his credit he took it all in stride, and simply asked me to get out my iPhone and Google “How to Break Into Your Own House.”

            

You’d be surprised how many interesting ways there are to break into a house.  This kept us awake and entertained for hours.

            

Luckily, in addition to 1. Not hiding or distributing extra keys and 2. forgetting the keys, we left a window unlocked (right now you’re probably thinking, These people are too stupid to live) so I scrambled over the woodpile stacked under the eaves,  climbed in through the garage, and voila!  Entry.

            

This is where the story slows and gets comfortably predictable, which is reassuring in real life but death in fiction.  Because after we got into the house we fired up the stove, snuggled into our sleeping bags before it, and all was well.  The End.

            

But as my very wise daughter observed the next day, the best stories are in the mess.

            

“Just think, Mom,” she said when I was finished complaining about the interruption to my Thanksgiving festivities, “someday we’ll be laughing about this one. ‘Remember the Thanksgiving when you and dad had to race back to keep the pipes from freezing, while me and Christian were hanging out on the beach in Malibu.’”

            

I’ve lived through 53 Thanksgivings and the only one I clearly remember was when we dropped the turkey, pan drippings and all, on the kitchen floor, and my abuela, hoping to be helpful, slipped in the grease and landed on her ass right next to the hot bird.  As we tried to hoist her up her legs kept slipping out from beneath her, skittering wildly and further spattering grease. 

            

The other 52 were fairly calm, organized affairs, and they all run together for me.  At the time they were lovely … and forgettable.

            

The best stories are the ones with sharp edges, the ones that go pop! They aren’t always happy stories with happy endings, but they’re the ones worth telling.  They’re not necessarily stories I want to live through at the time, but it’s not I’ve got a choice.  Maybe the key to surviving those, is recognizing them.

            

The other day I treated myself to a lovely, hardcover copy of Mary Oliver’s latest collection of poetry, Blue Horses, and this one surprised me.  She seems to welcome the moving parts that scare me, and I think she must be very brave.

If I Wanted a Boat

By Mary Oliver

I would want a boat, if I wanted a

boat, that bounded hard on the waves,

that didn’t know starboard from port

and wouldn’t learn, that welcomed

dolphins and headed straight for the

whales, that, when rocks were close,

would slide in for a touch or two,

that wouldn’t keep land in sight and

went fast, that leaped into the spray.

What kind of life is it always to plan

and do, to promise and finish, to wish

for the near and the safe? Yes, by the

heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want

a boat I couldn’t steer.

My Writing Process

I talk to myself.  Sometimes out loud.  In public places.

It’s been going on for a long time.  I remember the first time I was made aware of it: I was 18.  I was standing in a friend’s house, in conversation with her and our mothers, when I realized everyone had stopped speaking and they were staring at me.  My mom looked horrified; the others amused.

“What?” I asked.

“You were talking to yourself,” my friend, Kathy, said.

“Uh … no I wasn’t,” I replied truthfully.  “I’m just listening.”

“Oh, yes you were,” my mom said.  “You were staring at the floor, your lips were moving, and words were coming out.  But you weren’t talking to us.”

I could feel my own eyes grow round.  I scrolled back in my mind to what had recently passed there.  I could not recall a single thing the others had just said … but a perfectly realized image of another person, a figment of my imagination, who had been regaling me with her story … popped up.

I had been talking to her.  That’s how vivid, how real, she had become, that I could turn off the actual conversation going on around me and slip into her world. 

I was mortified.  And yes, a little scared.  It was one thing to be the family daydreamer, the “absent-minded professor,” as I was known.  Perpetual preoccupation was an annoying, but endearing, habit. 

Talking aloud to make-believe people was another thing altogether. 

For me, writing has been a socially acceptable and necessary release of the pent up energies of the characters and stories which inhabit my imagination.  I don’t know why they are so insistent, but it has always been so.  Transferring their voices, their faces, and their lives, from my mind to the page is what we call “the creative process,” and I’ll confess:  it’s very hard and I don’t always enjoy it.  But for me, the alternative is odd behavior and (if you talk to my family) rotten moods, so I really have no choice.

For the past few months the blog tour known as “My Writing Process” has been alighting at author websites throughout the internet.  It involves answering four questions about writing, then passing the baton to several other writers who post one week later.  Author Katie Quirk invited me to get on board today, and it’s been fun not only to think about “process” (usually I just … do it) but also to discover many, many authors I had never come across before.

Katie is the author of A Girl Called Problem, a middle-grade novel set in Tanzania. She is currently working on a memoir about life with a newborn baby in India.  Originally from Washington state, Katie has taught English and writing for over ten years to students as diverse as Spanish-speaking third graders in the California farm belt, Berkeley community-college students, international high-school students in India, and Swahili-speaking journalism students in Tanzania. She currently lives in Maine with her husband and two kids.

So here goes!  I encourage you to visit Katie’s site and learn about her work, as well as check in with the authors I’m linking to below.

What are you working on now?  All my books to date fall into the “young adult” genre, but the manuscript on my laptop right now will most likely be considered “new adult.”  Meaning my audience will include readers 16 and older … but mostly older.  It is set on a college campus and involves a criminal accusation.  The working title is “Rage.”

I always like to try something new, narratively speaking, with each book, and this latest is a departure for me not only because the audience and subject matter is quite mature, but because I’m writing in third-person limited for the first time (my other books are all narrated in first person.)  I’m also alternating between a male and a female point-of-view, so … a lot going on.

How does your work differ from others of its genre?  I write realistic fiction and I embrace challenging topics.  Death, eating disorders, racism and next up, crime, if I had to list the order.  Peppered with plenty of humor.  I remember seeing “August: Osage County” on Broadway years ago and realizing how absolutely necessary it is, when dramatizing, to leaven brutal truth with humor.

Interestingly, my main characters all play sports, although “sports” was never my intended theme.  Soccer dominates, as does tennis.  It’s come as quite a surprise to me, because while I love sports and play sports, I was quite a music and literary geek in school.

Why do you write what you do?  I never intended to write realistic, young adult fiction:  it simply happened.  Now, I’m incredibly grateful to have found a creative outlet in this genre.

Young people lead with their hearts when they read, and I love getting on board that emotional roller coaster with them.  I love creating characters they love and hate, story lines they tear through, books they reread.  The books that changed my life were all books I read as an adolescent.  When I open my email and some young reader from a middle school thousands of miles from my home in Maine tells me he LOVED one of my books … that’s incredible.  It’s such a gift, such a privilege.

How does your writing process work?  The simple answer is:  I work best in the morning, after a cup of coffee and a walk with the dog.  I work best with regular hours spent at the computer, day after day, until a predictable rhythm is set.  The phone, Facebook, emails, the doorbell … that all knocks me off course, and I need to be disciplined and tune out distractions.

The more complicated answer:  I might have an “idea” for a story (for example, in my first book, Brett McCarthy:  Work in Progress, I knew I wanted to write about friends growing apart) but I cannot get started until I know my characters, and that involves writing many, many, many pages which no one will, or ever should, read.  Sometimes it is discouraging to get to the end of a day of writing and realize that absolutely none of what I produced will end up in a final draft … but I have to trust in the process and know that eventually the real story will emerge on the page.

I pick up a lot of hitchhikers along the way and also throw a lot of people off the bus.  Writing for me (and this is not my original metaphor, I borrowed it) is driving on a foggy night:  I can see only a few feet ahead of me, but I trust that if I keep moving forward I will eventually make it to my destination.  That said:  sometimes unexpected folks wave you down along the way, and you have to be open to letting them in.  Mr. Beady, in Brett, was just such a hitchhiker … a completely unexpected character … and he soon became one of my favorites.

Only this week I threw two passengers off the bus.  This was in my work-in-progress, which originally had four narrators.  Interestingly, the ejected passengers were both older adults.  They were slowing things down and distracting me with their particular problems and complaints which were not moving the story forward so … off they went.  I’m better able now to listen to the two college students who are left.

I write slowly, in a linear way.  I also know the end.  Some writers say they write to discover the end, but I write to figure out how to get there.  Maybe that’s why I take in hitchhikers:  I’m hoping they can give me directions.  Sometimes, when I’m stuck, or really having no fun at all and the writing feels like drudgery, I will treat myself to writing a scene out of sequence, some scene or chapter I’m really looking forward to, and that helps propel me out of the doldrums.  It’s also a bonus, to catch up to that scene and feel like, “Wow, that work’s already done!”

Next up:  Please meet Anna Eleanor Jordan (Anna Boll) and Sashi Kaufman, who will post on Thursday, June 5^th.  Both Anna and Sashi were on the teaching faculty with me at the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference this May.

Anna Eleanor Jordan (Anna Boll) is an author, illustrator and educator.  She runs a school and library booking business for authors and illustrators called Creative Bookings and writes freelance curriculum for authors, illustrators and publishers.  Her poetry appears in Highlights High Five, Babybug, and Ladybug magazines.  Her illustrations appear in the picture book Fufu and Fresh Strawberries (The Telling Room.) She has an MFA and Picture Book Certificate from Vermont College of Fine Arts and an MSEd from the University of Southern Maine.

Sashi Kaufman is a middle school English and science teacher in Portland, Maine.  Her first novel, The Other Way Around, was published by Carolrhoda Lab in 2014. 

Everyday Diversity

Twitter lit up yesterday with some hashtag called #WeNeedDiverseBooks.  Or maybe I simply noticed it yesterday … I don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter, and lately I’ve been immersed in putting together a workshop for writers interested in adding cultural diversity to their children’s books.  Which might explain why this caught my attention.

The half of me which could pass as “diverse” felt her skin crawl as I scrolled through all the posts. 

I applaud the intention, really I do, of those who want to raise awareness about the appalling lack of “characters of color” in mainstream publishing today.  Let’s just put it out there:  of 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about black people.  The numbers get worse when you look at Latinos, Asians, Native Americans … and when those sorts of characters do appear, they are often as representative figures from historical legacies about the civil rights movement or slavery or the Trail of Tears.  Or kids books about Cinco de Mayo.  Or World War II Japanese relocation sagas.

The only thing possibly worse than the numbers are the cardboard-cut-out depictions of non-white characters as downtrodden victims, as “other,” as “different-but-still-cool.” 

In our admirable quest to write “diverse” books, we need to be wary of creating the Separate But Equal Minority Genre.  We need to be careful that we don’t inadvertently intensify notions of “otherness.”  That we don’t create black/Hispanic/Asian/Arab characters who are "shining examples" of diversity.  That we do, as Walter Dean Myer’s urges us to do, in his essay published in the New York Times this past March, depict characters who are “an integral and valued part of the mosaic” of our shared American culture.

I recently stumbled upon the phrase, “everyday diversity.”  It was used by a children’s librarian in Hennepin County, Minnesota, who has put together lists of children’s books which she believes are diverse as a matter-of-course.  Books in which the protagonists might be non-white … but their non-whiteness is not the subject of the book.  The books are about making friends, getting into college, losing a tooth, visiting Grandma … and the characters doing all these things just happen to be named Abdullah or Jose.

Everyday diversity doesn’t ignore culture and race.  It relegates culture and race to adjectives, to parts of the complex background which define and enrich character, which adds depth to our characters without siloing them as “the black” or “the Native American” or “the Muslim.”

One of my favorite authors, the young adult novelist, Francisco Stork, does this brilliantly.  Stork’s characters are of Mexican descent, but that cultural detail is imbedded in his stories.  It’s one of many moving parts in complex depictions of well-wrought characters who defy stereotypes.  Read Marcelo in the Real World to see what I mean.

The writer Julia Alvarez puts it this way: “Stories are about the big circle, the gathering of the different tribes of the human family. Getting down into ethnic/racial bunkers of literature totally negates what stories are about.” 

In those two sentences, Alvarez embodies the goal … and the challenge … of writing any fiction, but especially for writing for young people today. 

Here's the hashtag I prefer:  #EverydayDiversity

Reading Round-Up and the Lupine Award

Oh, frabjous day!

Yesterday was the annual Maine Reading Round-Up conference, where I was so thrilled to receive the Lupine Award for my novel, Out of Nowhere.

This was the 25^th anniversary of the Lupine, and for a special treat the Portland artist, Toby Rosenberg, who has been creating our gorgeous fired-china award plates, was in attendance and handed out the awards.

The night before the conference we were all treated to a lovely dinner at the Maple Hill Farm Bed and Breakfast in Hallowell, Maine. 

Gathering at the Maple Hill Farm

Author Anita Silvey gave the keynote address, which focused on her new book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Children’s Book.  What a terrific speaker!  And yes, I’m heading out to buy multiple copies after hearing her talk.

The day was filled with terrific panels: unfortunately, one can’t attend them all.  I enjoyed hearing authors Lea Wait, Sashi Kaufman and Ammi-Joan Paquette discuss “The Past, Present, and Future in Children’s Literature.”

Left to right: Lea Wait, Sashi Kaufman, Ammi-Joan Paquette

After lunch, it was time for door prizes and awards, and it was an absolute thrill to receive my plate from Toby and stand with these other fabulous Maine authors.  It was especially moving to see Anne Sibley O’Brien win the Katahdin Award for Lifetime Achievement:  well deserved!  Earlier in the day we had learned that Robert McCloskey (think: Make Way for Ducklings) had been the first to win the Katahdin Award. 

Left to right: Kimberly Ridley, Rebekah Raye, Megan Frazer Blakemore, Maria Padian, Anne Sibley O'Brien, Melissa Sweet.

I left Reading Round-Up this year feeling as I always do after this terrific conference:  we are so blessed in Maine to have not only an incredible community of dedicated librarians and educators, but an extraordinary community of children’s writers and illustrators. What a privilege to live and work here!  I feel so grateful.

This year’s Lupine Award Winners are:  “The Secret Pool,” by Kimberly Ridley, illustrated by Rebekah Raye, Tilbury House (picture book winner); “Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909,” by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, Balzer + Bray (honor book); “Out of Nowhere,” by Maria Padian, Alfred A. Knopf, (juvenile/young adult winner); “The Water Castle,” by Megan Frazer Blakemore, Walker, (honor book).  Anne Sibley O'Brien received the Katahdin Lifetime Achievement Award.  

Maple Sugar Sunday

It went down to seven degrees last night.  Seven.

         I know there’s plenty I could say on that topic, most of it grouchy, but instead I’m going to focus on the magic.  Because these cold March nights, accompanied by sunny, warm-ish days mean one thing:  sap running.

         Okay, okay, I know:  it also means slush-which-turns-to-ice-chunks and grit and mud.  So. Much. Mud.  But it means sap running, the trees exhaling and warming up … ever notice how the snow immediately around the tree’s base melts first? … and maple sugar season. 

Bean boots in their native habitat: mud.

         Every March, on one chosen Sunday, Maine farmers open their sugarhouses to the public for Maine Maple Sunday, and we get to witness the magic.  And the mud.  And the slush.  It’s completely delicious and dirty and still fairly cold and our family loves it.  This point of the season in late March is known to sugarmakers as “the frog run,” because the spring peepers can be heard at night, signaling the beginning of spring and the last of the sap.  Author John Elder has written a

lovely, lyrical book about sugaring called “The Frog Run,” and I highly recommend it.

         Anyway, yesterday was the day, and we drove to Cooper’s Royal Heritage Farm in Windham, Maine.  It was appropriately slushy and crowded and muddy.  Seriously muddy.  A line of us tramped through the mud and filed into the sugarhouse where we could see the evaporator at work.

We could also sample some of this season's syrup on ice cream.  "Syrup Nouveau," if you will.

Yum! And yes, those are chickens and manure in the background.

        

Mud

It takes roughly 40 gallons of sap, boiled down, to produce one gallon of syrup.  Most of the maple syrup in the world comes from Quebec:  about 7.5 million gallons each year.  Next is Vermont, with 460,000 gallons.  Maine is fourth in production, with 250,000 gallons. 

         Back in the day, sap used to be collected in buckets.  Now, trees are likely to be tapped using unlovely yet efficient plastic tubes and tubs.  And instead of the wood-fire-stoked evaporators, many modern sugarhouses will employ oil or propane-power to boil their sap.       

Back in the day ...

 

Less picturesque, way more practical.

         We got to Cooper’s a bit late for the pancake breakfast, but the ice cream was great.  Another favorite is sugar-on-snow:  you heat syrup and butter to a little over 230 degrees (use a candy thermometer) then spoon it over a tub of packed snow.  When it sits on top of the snow and clings to a fork, like taffy, it’s ready.

Did I mention the mud?

         Cooper’s sells maple sugar candy as well as syrup and honey and maple roasted nuts (!) so we returned home well-supplied.  And hungry.  One of my daughter’s college friends is a Vermonter from Norwich, and her uncle, the food writer Ken Haedrich, (who is a winner of the Julia Child Cookbook Award) has penned the wonderful “Maple Syrup Cookbook.”  Inspired, we came home from our day and made Ken’s Gingered Pork Medallions, which, naturally, use real maple syrup in the recipe. 

         It was so, so good.  Almost makes March bearable.

         Meanwhile, in Vermont, they were up to the same shenanigans yesterday.  My writer friend/classmate Hugh Coyle was out and about in the mud and syrup madness as well, and shared photos ... and one of his poems ... on Facebook.  I love it, and share it here with you:

Sugar Season

by Hugh Coyle

Mid-March, and the bare-wristed maples 
shake off last night’s ice to lift
branches toward struggling sun.
Slick bark glistens along the trunks,
the scars of past sap harvests
welted up near this season’s taps.

The syrup man tramps through crusted snow,
checks his levels and lines. Next week,
perhaps, this cold snap will break. He slings
one more steel bucket onto a spike,
impatient for winter’s slow apology