Sweet Saturday

Book club is such a good way to start a weekend. Little Bee by Chris Cleave was our choice this month, and an excellent choice it was. In fact, I read it about a year ago and found it just as compelling this time. Certain proof of a good book, in my estimation.

Our 8:30 breakfast meeting was followed with a couple of hours at the office and a haircut. Then home again to make the beer bread I've been planning all week. Whole wheat Guinness beer bread, to be precise. That entire loaf disappeared in the making of some absolutely spectacular caramelized onion grilled cheese sandwiches from one of my favorite food blogs, Closet Cooking.

While the bread was rising, I tried something else new: Joy the Baker's Maple Bacon Kettle Corn. You read that correctly. Maple Bacon Kettle Corn. This little bit of naughtiness was a recent discovery that just screamed a for trial run during the sapping season. Although I was deathly afraid of burning it, the batch came out pretty well and was an appreciated treat for the sap collectors.
You can bet this won't be making a regular appearance around here. There' s just something inherently frightening about a popcorn recipe that starts with 1/4 cup bacon fat, isn't there? In the spirit of the season, however, it was certainly worth the effort.

This maple season has been an odd one. The taps went in, the sap ran for a couple of days then came to a dead halt with the cold weather. Now the trees are running again, but if the weather warms as we all hope it does, the season (and our time to spend on it) will be very short. Nonetheless, it is the sweetest time of year. If you need further proof of that, take a jump over to Alyssa's blog for a million maple recipes. Well, maybe not a million, but certainly a whole bunch!