T.T.: Come Over To the (Maple) Dark Side

(Today is Calvin's birthday. He is nine. Although I usually post a picture of the birthday kid on the day, he is definitely not okay with me posting a picture of him, so I won't.)

One of the culinary carryovers from my decade and a half of living in New York State was a deep and abiding love of maple syrup. I had never even had real maple syrup before moving there--we always used Aunt Jemima for our pancakes and so on when I was a kid--but it didn't take me long to decide that I could never be without it again. 

We even made it ourselves for several years at Blackrock, which is very fun and also means syrup in enough quantity that it can be used for things other than just pancakes or waffles. 

We use maple syrup in many, many ways. On oatmeal and cream of wheat, in yogurt, as a sweetener in applesauce or fruit crisps, and on and on. Almost anywhere you can use brown sugar, maple syrup is just as good, if not better.

I even sometimes add it to milk for the kids. They've never had chocolate milk made with Hershey's syrup, but they love maple milk.

When it comes to maple syrup, I prefer to think outside the waffle/pancake box.

And then we moved to New Mexico, where sugar maples are in short supply.

I decided, however, that it's worth it to me to still have maple syrup in large quantities. Thanks to the Internet and modern shipping, I can have it. And because I buy it in such large quantities, it costs the same for me to order it and have it sent to me as it did for me to buy it from the maple farm up the road from us when we lived in Northern New York.

I order it four gallons at a time from a Vermont syrup company. But I don't get the same syrup you're likely to be buying at the grocery store, which is what they used to call Grade A, and is now called Amber. I much prefer the Grade B syrup, which is now called Dark Robust.

Whatever you call it, I think the dark syrup is vastly superior to the lighter syrup. It has a much more complex flavor, like caramel. The lighter syrup tastes very bland in comparison.

It might not be available where you are, and you might not be crazy enough to buy it gallons at a time like I do, but if you ever get the chance to get some of the dark syrup, definitely do it. It makes life so much more delicious.