I will have to smuggle Canada Mints and maple sugar candy back into California.

And the landscape is truly lovely. (I adore Minnesota, but I oddly enough miss the MA/VT/NH mountain ranges and hills far more than the ocean.)

We were also fond of the Shelburne Museum, which is about 30 minutesish south of Burlington (and on the other side of the state), and which is another of those random collections of interesting stuff (everything from a house full of duck decoys to Amish quilts to Impressionist art to a major circus display with the most gorgeous carousel animals carved out of glowing satiny wood and an entire scale model of a circus parade that requires a quarter-mile long building to display.) Excellent for families who have lots of different interests.

But I do miss the leaves turning.

If you're dithering between this weekend and next, I'd recommend going sooner than later.

The Mad River Valley in Vermont is awfully pretty this time of year too.

From Little Blog in the Big Woods:

For perhaps a half an hour, the sky rains leaves. Quietly, with only the occasional drip of melted frost to accompany the swish of the sailing leaves. What happens when some compound leaf loses a leaflet or two on one side? Unbalanced, they twirl, and swirl, and... well, dance is the only word. Each an individual; a sky full of brilliant, flashing, variations.

Walking in it is transfiguring. Walking through it with a loved one- moreso. Walking through it with a small child- neither you, nor they, will ever forget.

It's a throat-hurtingly beautiful thing; a rite of change I've shared with my loved ones whenever I could. This is IT; the exact instant of change, from summer to fall- the world has turned, successfully, once more. That "successfully" bit is not a given, you know.

It's apparently a once-a-year alignment of factors that only happens at dawn. Greenpa (the blogger) describes it fully at the link above.

I cut open a pumpkin today, though, and I smelled it a little.

And then there's Injun Summer. Anyone know if the Trib still runs it?

Maple-Garlic-Orange Sauce

Peel, section, seed, and subdivide the sections of two oranges; toss these in a sauce pan of moderate capacity, three or four halves of a litre. (Mostly so it's wide enough to take the strainer later.)

Peel and pulp into the pot between a dozen and a score cloves of garlic, depending on whether they be good plump cloves or no, or if you take any particularly delight in garlic.

Add to the pot a goodly dollop of brandy and enough water to almost cover the oranges. Cast enough powdered cinnamon on it to cover lightly half the surface.

Put the pot on heat at the high end of medium. Stir; squish any of the orange sections that look a bit large.

When the water steams, stir in an eighth litre or so of maple syrup; from this point, if you stop stirring, the maple syrup will tend to fall out and stick to the bottom of the pot, so don't do that.

Once the mixture boils, turn the heat down and simmer another five minutes, stirring all the while.

Remove from heat; pour into a blender. Rinse the pot, and put it back on the (off!) stovetop ring.

Blend the mixture on 20% speed (2 out of 5 on my blender) until it is entirely homogenized. (Any seeds you hear at this point mean stopping the blender and fishing them out again. Ingesting ground orange seed = bad!)

Place a wire strainer over the pot; pour the mixture into the strainer. Give it a minute or three to finish dripping, remove the strainer, and turn the heat back on just below medium.

Stir, and stir in a tablespoon of tapioca starch already blended with a tablespoon of cold water. After a minute, turn the heat up to just below high, and keep stirring until the sauce thickens.

Remove from heat and serve.

Good over flesh or fowl; excellent with egg rolls. Can be consumed directly with a spoon. Good for what ails you.

Emphatically in the "either the entire company shall, or the entire company shall not" category.

Bonus points for a recipe that combines pumpkin with apple. Extra bonus points for a recipe that combines half a pumpkin with the entire contents of an apple tree....

One of the best views of sugar maples is about 20 miles north of St. J. around Willoughby Lake. There's a surprising view of what a glacier can do to a mountain - split it in half.

There's also a terrific diner on Route 5, near the Lyndonville exit of 91 - The Miss Lyndonville Diner. Particularly great pancakes.

And, don't forget that when you stop at one of those roadside stands to buy Vermont maple syrup, get grade B. It's cheaper than the grade A and tastes better. It is, however, a little darker.

Pumpkin Cookies

I can't take credit for this recipe: it's from the old alt.callahans Cookbook, and was contributed by Damien Saunders of Tasmania.

• 2 cups raw sugar (Turbinado, or raw sugar from the organic section of your supermarket; white sugar will work in a pinch)
• 2 cups cooked pumpkin
• 1 cup salad oil
• 4 cups self-rising flour
• 2 cups raisins (I use either golden raisins or a mixture)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Incidentally, some years ago when I first tried (I think) Haagen-Dazs' chocolate sorbet, I noticed that the nutritional info looked equivalent to Hershey's chocolate syrup diluted 1:1 with plain water-- which in fact creates a fairly similar result when thoroughly mixed and stuck into the freezer until solid. Substituting milk for water resulted in an odder texture with larger flat ice crystals, though.

1.5 cups milk
1 package sugar-free instant vanilla pudding
1 (14 ounce) can pumpkin
0.5 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Combine milk & pudding. Mix well.

2. Stir in the pumpkin & cloves. Mix well.

3. Pour into serving bowls. Cover and chill.

Makes 4 servings

I've never made this, but I cut it out because I like pumpkin food.

It's cheaper than the grade A and tastes better.

Interesting combination of qualities. So why is grade B maple syrup both less expensive and better-tasting?

It's also debatable about the "better tasting" part; it's one of those strong flavour/subtle flavour things. I will myself take a good medium Grade A over most Grade B.

But, anyway, Grade B is darker, and therefor cheaper, because it doesn't look as refined on the table in a great hotel. There are also historical implications about how long it's been since the last time the boiler was scrubbed or how likely it is that some burnt bits have gotten in and applied some undesirable darkening.

Because back when the grading system was being invented, the goal was to have the maple syrup be as much like sugar as possible; lack of discernable maple flavor was a good thing.

Y'all might be interested to know that the Colebrook House is running a Leaf Peepers' Special: Stay three nights, get the fourth for free.

Looking at the hills we're getting more brilliant oranges than we've had for years.

Next year....

(sorry man, but you tripped a trigger)