Vermonters have our maple syrup classics - sugar on snow (with all the fixings), baked beans, maple cream pie, maple creamie (a modern classic). This Saturday, Sweet Lime Cooking Studio in Jericho is teaching some twists on those classics and maybe creating a few new ones ahead of Vermont’s sugaring season. And they're doing it as a fundraiser for Slow Food Vermont.
The Maximum Maple Overload class planned for February 15th, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm will cover:
- Maple Soda – maple water, syrup, and lots of froth
- Sugar on Snow…and in a birch cone – a classic two ways
- Eggs in Syrup – simple and delish with a couple of maple straws
- Maple Baked Cheese with Roasted Nuts – VT cheese with warm maple taffy
The maple class is one of many offered throughout the year at Sweet Lime Cooking Studio. This cooking studio began as a way for Jessica Bongard to share cooking techniques along with the story behind the food she prepares. Her classes, she writes, will be “. . .always prompting you to see your culinary landscape with new eyes.”
Slow Food Vermont creates community through celebrating food. Throughout the year this network organizes potlucks, tastings, workshops and other educational events.
Jess sat on the Board of Slow Food Vermont for two and a half years, and hosting classes as a Slow Food partner isn't new to her. She first got involved because “Supporting Slow Food VT supports everything I think food should be; Good, Clean, and Fair," Plus, she notes that “. . . For me, sharing really great, simple foods that come from our backyards always promises a good time."
This is the third year that Jess has offered the Maximum Maple Overload class. The promise of a good time has come true every year and she doesn’t have a shortage of maple preparations to share.
“Being a native Vermonter, I’ve eaten an insane volume of maple syrup,” Jess says, “[And] choosing the dishes is the best part of developing a class, second to eating it. I have a thick stack of collected recipes I sift through for the class, making sure there are several ways to enjoy the syrup. Sweet, savory, have to be able to drink it, and something off the beaten track. The dishes that get chosen are ones I can't get enough of.”
Will her dishes also be ones you return to again and again? The only way to find out will be to try them. Read more about the event here.
The February 15th class is a perfect prelude to the events that happen around Vermont in March and April, including the annual Maple Open House Weekend happening statewide March 22nd and 23rd, organized by the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association (a DigInVT partner). Update February 14th - The Maximum Maple Overload Class has been postponed - we will add it to our events page when it is rescheduled!
Do you have a favorite maple recipe you’d like to share? Interested in writing about it for DigInVT.com? Contact helen.labun.jordan @ gmail.com for more information on being a guest blogger in March.
