First maple of 2012

When Kari and I moved back to New England, we started a tradition of going to sugar shacks to have pancakes during the brief maple sugaring season (see those posts from last February & March on my site, or from 2010 on Kari’s site). This year we wanted to hit the few sugar shacks in the area that serve breakfast which we haven’t been to yet. This morning we were joined by my mom, and we drove through the snowy woods to the Red Bucket Sugar Shack in Worthington.

We were excited when we arrived. It looked like a quintessential New England sugar house. We were also the second car of diners to arrive (the first were getting out of their cars as we pulled up).

 

They had one of the widest selections of maple stuff I’ve seen at a sugar shack.

When we arrived, the evaporator wasn’t running yet (the machine where they boil the sap down into maple syrup).

The dirt floor of the boiling room/entryway. We went into the dining room and sat down at a picnic table that faced the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the sap lines connected to the trees outside.

They built the dining room around this still growing tree:

We got there at 7:50am…and waited…and waited…and waited. The dining room filled up fast, and by 8:15am, the room was full…but we still had no service. We watched in frustration as the servers went to every single table, but ours, and gave them menus, took their orders, and brought their food. Eventually, we managed to get someone’s attention and they brought us menus.

There was a lot of good stuff on the menu! They had things like zucchini pancakes, and maple milkshakes. We placed our orders. And waited. We watched as the other carload of people that arrived just before us, finished, paid, left, and were replaced by another family. Time seemed to stop.

Then, a miracle happened!

Our food had arrived! I ordered two pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage (bottom). Kari ordered a breakfast that had the eggs between the pancakes…

…and sausage cooked inside the pancakes! My mom got blueberry pancakes. The food was delicious. Everything was amazing, even the maple chai tea that Kari ordered. I’m not a tea person at all, but I took a sip, and loved it.

When we got up, we looked around and saw that every table had turned over since we had been in there. As we were leaving, the entryway was filled with steam as the evaporator was running.

The food was awesome, but being ignored for so long was pretty crappy. I understand they probably just overlooked us, but that turned this from, what would have been, a great experience to a heavily tarnished “so-so.”

In a more positive note, check out the new Regina Spektor song. It’s so good!

 

What I’m listening to: Regina Spektor – All The Rowboats