March is maple month. I love walking down the road with my dog and peering into the containers along the way to see how much sap they have collected. The season has had its ups and downs this year, but as I write this, it has been a pretty good one for Clark family here in Hawley.

Maple producers come in all shapes and sizes. Jacob Clark and his father Kevin run a business that lands on the small to medium end of the maple spectrum. They produce 250 to 300 gallons of syrup in an average season. They sell it in only two venues—from their home and at Avery’s General Store in Charlemont.

Nevertheless, making syrup is an important part of their lives. Kevin has been taking it easy this year; he is recovering from hip surgery. Jacob has therefore stepped up to work mostly solo, and it was Jacob with whom I talked about sugaring. He is proud to be part of a family business. He told me that his grandfather, Darwin Clark (who was a selectman and many other things here in Hawley) started producing syrup in the 1980s, before Jacob was born.

In fact, the family connection is a major reason for Jacob’s enjoyment of tapping trees and boiling sap. When asked about his favorite part of the work, he replied, “Being outside and just making the syrup and keeping a family tradition going.”

After a minute or two, he added another favorite activity: “Getting to taste your product when you get done boiling.”

As it is for many syrup producers, sugaring is a side job for Jacob, who mainly works as a carpenter. Although this year he is mostly on his own in the woods and the sugarhouse, he told me he enjoys the camaraderie of working with his father, relatives, and friends when they are available.

I asked him what he sees as the hardest part of the job. He explained that tapping the trees can be a lot of work. I know it that is the case in my hilly backyard. (The Clarks include my woods in their sap-collection area.) My dog has no trouble running up the steep slope, but I avoid it whenever possible.

“There’s a lot of walking around in the woods and a lot of exercise,” Jacob noted.

When he first started making maple syrup with his father, he informed me, the processing of reducing the sap into syrup presented the greatest challenge.

“The boiling was the hardest thing to learn,” he stated. “It’s pretty temperamental…. You have to keep your head in a swivel.”

The amount of time it takes to boil down the syrup can vary, he explained. He estimated that for a good run he spends four to six hours boiling after he has collected the sap from his family’s various locations.

He is often alone in the sugarhouse in East Hawley, but family members stop by from time to time to help out and chat.

In the end, Jacob said, he judges that all the work is worth the effort. He feels a special connection to his family’s syrup. “You know where it comes from,” he said with satisfaction. “It’s like raising your own beef.”

Jacob is generally too busy working to cook much with his syrup. “Typical breakfast stuff is what I use it for,” he told me. “I put it on pancakes and waffles and stuff like that…. I put it in my coffee every morning.”

When prodded, however, he came up with the cookie recipe below, which the Clarks adapted from one supplied by a friend. The family made them for a bake sale recently, and the cookies disappeared very quickly.

I prepared them for friends, who found them sweet (they are!) but had no problem eating them. If you want to halve the recipe, you may either use a small egg or use only the yolk of a large egg.

Anyone interested in ordering maple syrup from the Clarks may call Jacob or Kevin at 413-339-4341.

Maple Monday Cookies

Ingredients for the cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup maple syrup (the real thing, of course)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

Ingredients for the maple glaze:

3/4 cup confections sugar (approximately)

1/3 cup maple syrup

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets or line them with silicone or parchment.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the brown sugar. Add the egg, the syrup and the vanilla. Mix until well blended.

Sift together the flour, the salt and the baking soda. Stir the dry mixture into the wet one until they are well blended. Shape the batter into 1-inch balls. (This can be a little tricky because the dough is slightly sticky. Just do your best.) Place the balls on the cookie sheets about 2 inches apart and flatten them slightly.

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes. Let them cool on a wire rack. While they are cooling, combine the ingredients for the glaze. (I didn’t actually measure the confectioner’s sugar; I just mixed into the syrup until I had a thick glaze.) Spoon the glaze over the cooled cookies, and allow it to set.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning author and singer. Her latest book is “Pot Luck: Random Acts of Cooking.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.

]]>