Cursed Recipe

Today is Palm Sunday-the Sunday before Easter. It is the start of Holy Week for the Christian Faith. I don't really go to church regularity, but I still acknowledge the holidays, of course. I grew up going to church every week, then went thru years where we didn't really go to church anymore, and then I started going again with my mom. When I joined the military, I loved going to church because it made the connection with home. No matter where I went to church, it was basically the same, with the same songs and prayers, and it felt comforting. I was married in the church, and we went all the time until we moved to Texas, and felt very uncomfortable in the church there. But in Crete, Greece, with two little girls, I was once again drawn back to the church for many years, until we moved back to Maryland, and really never went to church again on a regular basis. I will always have my faith though, no matter where I am, and I think, some day, I will feel that need to start going again.

So, with the start of Holy Week, it is also the one week of the year when I can make a special Italian Easter Dish, we all know better as Skutzel. This is a recipe passed down thru generations, and is said to be cursed for anyone who makes this dish outside of Holy Week. Don't ask me what would happen. No one in my family has dared to make it other than during this week. One sister tried to stretch it by thinking maybe it would be okay to make it on "Easter Monday," but we couldn't find positive assurance that Monday was part of Holy Week, so I don't think she made it that year. I even remember one year my dad was driving all over town on Easter Sunday looking for Ricotta cheese so my mom could make it that day. I made my Skutzel today. It is also known as Easter Pie. It is made of layers of cheese and eggs with pepperoni between, and baked in a really good crust. This is it with the first layer of cheese/eggs mixture in the crust:

Then I added the pepperoni, cheese, pepperoni, cheese, and the top crust, and it looked like this in the oven:

It bakes for an hour. The recipe itself is special because it was one my mom used that my Aunt Barb had typed out for her. It even says to call her with any questions, and told when she was home. And that Aunt Barb passed away in January of this year, so I was also thinking of her, and my mom and my dad as I made it today. I also thought of my daughters, two of which don't like Skutzel, and the one in Texas, who actually makes it herself now. I think she might have the recipe my mom wrote out for me. 

While my Skutzel baked, I finished making the duck I was doing for my grandson's first Easter. Here is a picture of it:

He turned out really cute. He has crinkly wings, and a round rattle in his belly. I want to mail out the things I got him for Easter tomorrow. I don't usually send the granddaughters anything for Easter. It may sound odd, but they are always in Cabo, Mexico at their time-share for Easter, and this year they leave on Friday to go there. I know they do things with their other grandparents, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal if they wouldn't even have whatever I would send them on Easter anyway. So that is one holiday I never get to share with them. 

So, now my Skutzel is done!

And, here it is cut so you can see the layers of pepperoni in it:

It really is yummy. I love taking it in my lunch. And I have some in the freezer just to be sure it doesn't go bad before we can eat it. I love traditions. They really mean a lot. And I love that I have a cursed recipe in my family. That would be an Italian curse, and you just don't mess with that!

Welcome Spring!

This is what the first day of Spring looked like this morning in Vermont:

Yes, I know it is a really pretty picture. That is our mighty maple and this is the view as you come down the driveway toward our house. And this is what it looked like this morning looking to the left from here, towards our neighbor's: 

Very lovely and picturesque also. But let's go back to the title of this post: SPRING! On Monday there was hardly a bit of snow around. It had been cold, but most of the snow was gone. Then Winter Storm Ukko blared into town, starting in the early morning hours Tuesday morning. It snowed most of the day and into the night, with a few breaks here and there. We probably ended up with about a foot of snow, which really isn't a huge problem around here. It was fairly warm, near 30° anyway, and most of what fell on the roads melted right away. But people are getting tired of the cold weather, and are ready for some warmer days.  So it was pretty barren down on Church Street all day, with only 2 sales and 5 people who came in all day. No one felt like being out and about. Even today, we had bursts of more snow, but some periods of sun too. And we do have warmer weather coming in by the weekend. So this will probably melt quickly. And the nice thing about it is that it will give us another good run of sap, and lots more maple syrup. Yes, this is Vermont!

Drip, Drip, Drip

Yes, those drips are from the sound of melting snow as the days up here in Vermont begin to warm up above freezing. But, March is sugar season, and even more important, that is the sound of the sap slowing seeping out of the maple trees through the taps, and into the many buckets hanging all over the state. 

Sap dripping into the bucket

This is a special time of year. People emerge after a long winter to join together with friends, neighbors and family to gather this sap, haul it down to the tractor, dump it out at the sugar house and boil it down to make Maple Syrup. Wednesday afternoon we headed out into the woods with about 10 other people and worked our way down the logging trail behind our house looking for this:

A bucket with sap in it

We empty this into pails and carry it down to the holding tank on the tractor. We have about 500 of these buckets hanging from maple trees around our little neighborhood, and it takes about an hour and a half to gather it all up, depending on how full the buckets are and how many people are helping. 

Buckets hanging on the Maples

Then we take it all back to the sugar house, and start the boiling process until the watery sap slowly turns into maple syrup. We live in this amazing neighborhood of about 4 close families who do this all together, then split the bottles of syrup between us all. Plus, we enlist the aid of nearby friends and family to help. We hang out in the warm, humidity talking, eating, drinking, sometimes dancing to the music that is playing, and having a good time until people slowly head for home. Sometimes they stop boiling early, and sometimes, if there has been a lot of sap, they will go until 11pm or later. This weekend looks like there will be a few late nights. The sap runs best when the temperature drops down into the upper 20's at night, then warms up close to 40° during the day. And if the sun is out, that is even better. Looks like it will be a good run for the next couple of days.

My son-in-law down in Maryland is a little sad that he may not make it up here this year to help. He has come for the past three years, since their wedding in 2010. But he just took 2 weeks of vacation to go to Honduras, and isn't sure he can take more vacation to come this year. He loves sugar season and hanging out in the sugar house with the guys. They may try to come up around Easter, and would hope the sap is still running, but they also have this little guy to think about:

Our beautiful grandson!

And his furry friend:

And its a very long 10 hour drive one way. So I understand well what a challenge it is to come up here. 

I will try to take some pictures of the sugar house to post on here over the weekend. We will go on daylight savings time on Sunday, which means it will be lighter out when we finish gathering and start boiling. The sugar house looks amazing when all that steam is pouring out of the top. And this is being repeated all over Vermont. It is the sign of the transition from winter to the warmer days of spring, when the maple trees begin to bud and the sap stops running. It is the sweet reward for the end of the long nights of winter.