Sugar Shack!

John — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:31:43 +0000

Spring is here! Yes! I love it! Winters cold, unfeeling grasp is finally letting go and the land shall live yet again! Yeeesss! And what do we Canadians do when Spring’s-a-knockin’? Why we go to the sugar shack, or the “cabane à sucre” as it’s also known. So, last weekend, we decided pack Sam up and to head on out as we were invited to a birthday party in a sugar shack. It was a beautiful sunny day, about ten degrees celsius and every one was feelin’ good, ready for a fun time… Well let me tells ya, we almost killed each other on the way up there.

You see, this shack is were you’d think would be: way deep in the bush. And this particular bush was over an hour away. So onto google maps I go, pump in the address, print out the directions and we’re off. However, these directions must’ve been written by Ray Charles, cause they didn’t have a clue where they were going, which pretty much means we didn’t either. We struggled the whole way to figured out if we should go east or west on a highway, or north or south on another. Then when we finally arrive in the area of the shack, the directions end with us sitting in the middle of an intersection. Nice. Very freakin’ nice.

We then started driving up and down this country road that we knew the shack would be on, but after close to thirty minutes, we found nothing. Melissa and I aren’t the best of friends at this point… ah couples! Luckily Sam was fast asleep in the back seat. Finally, my brother calls asking where we were. He had forgotten his cell and was using his girlfriends, who’s number we didn’t have. He starts guiding us towards the shack and things are looking good when he suddenly cuts out. Our cell phone’s battery is dead.

I swore. Loudly.

So Sam wakes up. Hungry.

It’s an hour past his bottle, and we are almost an hour late for the party. We finally stopped when we found another sugar shack and asked them to point us towards their competition, they did with a smile. Following those instruction, we finally made it to this freakin’ hunk of planks in the woods. Unpacking Sam, who’d by now had his bottle in the car, and headed inside, where we found my brother and had a good laugh. We then proceeded to stuff our faces with the traditional sugar shack meal: ham, eggs, fried potatoes, beans, triple-cooked bacon, pea soup and a bit of pure maple syrup on top of everything!

Decadent. Delicious. Diabetic.

Makin' Toffee!

Now you might’ve noticed the lack of vegetables… Well yeah, you’d be correct… So, movin’ right along, what about dessert? Sugar pie, sugar donuts, sugar crepes… you seeing a pattern? And the “pièce de résistance”: maple toffee, or “la tire” as it’s called around here. That’s when they boil down the sap from a maple tree until it becomes has thick texture. Once that’s achieved, you lay strips of it on fresh snow. Wait a couple minutes and roll it up on a popsicle sitck! Quite a sugar kick but nothing’s like it! Funny thing is, Sam was not a fan! He didn’t like the sugar pie either, so we didn’t force him, and finished his dessert for him.

Overall it was a fun day, Sam loved the food, just not the dessert, and the party was a success. All the fresh air and food had taken its toll on Sammy-boy, who once strapped into his seat, was out like a light for the drive home. We followed my brother out of the backwoods maze of hell-streets back to civilization and made it back home in good time, Sam sleeping the whole way.

Whew!

Have a great weekend gang! Chat ya soon!

Our Baby Size Life! » sugar shack

Sugar Shack!