The Key Ingredient Read Online Free Page B

1950s, she moved up to Rush Mountain as a young bride from Boston, and she was always cold. I could feel the warm air wafting from the furnace, swinging my feet while I dawdled over homework or daydreamed while looking out the window at the snow-­covered hills.
    On baking days, we would spread out the flour-­dusted rolling cloth and then we’d get to work creating pale circles of dough for pies or cookies. The scent of butter and sugar filled the air, luring Dad and Kyle and Gramps in from their chores, and Mom down from her painting studio above the garage. I always loved the way food—­and Gran’s cooking in particular—­brought ­people together. Through my eyes as a child, it was a kind of magic. When I open the pantry door for the film crew, I can still smell the yeasty aroma of Gran’s baking bread. Like the scars on the table, some things never fade away.
    We film some footage in the house. Mom is fluttery, her voice high-­pitched with nerves, but I hope the shots of the old-­fashioned kitchen and rows of tin maple-­ syrup jugs will be usable. Afterward, we all head out to the sugarbush.
    Her bewitching way with food and friends was at its most powerful during the sugar season. That’s when we collect the sap from the maples and boil it until it turns to maple syrup.
    Timing and weather rule our world during those dark weeks at the tail end of winter. When the temperature thaws during the daylight hours and freezes at night, that’s when the sap runs like a faucet. It has to be collected at the peak of freshness and then boiled right away in the evaporator pans over in the sugarhouse. Forty gallons of sap, boiled to a temperature of 219 degrees Fahrenheit, yield a single gallon of syrup. But the moment you taste a drop of Sugar Rush on your tongue, you know it’s worth all the trouble. The work is exciting, miserable, muddy, gratifying and everything in between. On days when the sky spits some nasty combination of rain and snow down on the sugarbush, it’s the hardest labor imaginable. Slogging through the woods across frozen ground or sucking mud in temperatures that make you forget you have fingertips or toes.
    Gran knew how to keep everyone happy during the sugaring-­off. Her baking skills were legendary in Switchback. When word got out that she’d made a batch of fried doughboys or maple scones and was serving them warm in the sugarhouse, everyone came for a taste. Her baking created a party atmosphere. Workers and neighbors would stand around the huge stainless-­steel evaporator pans. The wood-­fired heat under the pans kept us all warm while we sampled her wonderful cookies and breads with hot cinnamon tea or coffee with cream. For the little ones, Gran would step outside the sugarhouse and drizzle boiling syrup over the snow. It would harden instantly into amber webs of sweetness.
    During the sugar season my final year of high school, my chores were confined to the sugarhouse—­managing and monitoring the boil. I didn’t mind that so much, because I could crank up the radio and daydream about the life I would have one day. I scheduled my hours at the evaporator pans to coincide with Fletcher Wyndham’s shift collecting and transporting the sap. I was no Celia Swank, but I knew I’d have no trouble at all inviting him into the sugarhouse. It’s warm and cavey inside, aglow from the fire. The whole place is redolent of maple-­scented steam, curling up to the roof vents. Never hesitant to show off my baking skills, I’d made salted maple-­pecan bars—­the ones that had once won me a blue ribbon at the county fair.
    It’s one of those treats that sells out first at any bake sale. You start with a soft shortbread crust, then add the maple-­pecan filling and bake it until it looks like a pecan pie. After it cools slightly, drizzle with maple butter and then finish with a few pinches of fleur de sel.