Sometimes You Just Have to Give Your Head a Shake

I am planning to attend a community lunch on Monday, the purpose of it being twofold; fun and planning for community halls. I just received an email asking that any of us bringing food should have a complete ingredient list with it. Sigh. I use a commercial pie crust, usually, for my signature maple cream pie. It is easier and faster than playing around with pie dough. I guess I could use the label on the container it comes in, but that would mean to admitting to the whole world that I am cheating, sort of, on my crust. (‘Grandma,’ I can hear a clear little voice asking. ‘Is this FROM SCRATCH or a mix?’) To give Little Miss the credit she is due, she was tuned in on ingredients because she has a potentially serious nut allergy. And I assume someone coming to this lunch has a concern. We had the same question before our hall’s roast beef dinner. But, the more I think about it, the more I think I may just make brownies instead of pie. Better for a group anyway, right? 

She who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.

It is a grey, but very mild, day out there just now. The cloud moved in just after daybreak and the dawn light on the strips of cloud as they came was beautiful. It is now not-beautiful, with the odd left-over leaf floating by and everything in muted, dull tones. Not a day to entice oneself out for a walk, even if walking was easy. Yesterday, now, the sky was a pale blue and there was also the brighter blue of the jays as they gobbled up their daily corn ration. They are little blue pigs about the corn and only go to the silo feeders for sunflower seeds when they have eaten every corn scrap. It is the kind of day that sound carries easily, too. 

Yesterday morning I heard two gunshots in quick succession and later found out that the guys at the hunt camp next door got their third deer – for three of them. The Ministry of Natural Resources sets a limit on how many deer can be hunted in each season and in each segment of the province. ‘Deer tags’ are issued to applicants with hunting licences. It seems to work, as our deer population stays about the same year by year. When we first got this land in the mid 1970’s, deer were very, very rare, but now we see them frequently. There were three at our gate when I drove out on Tuesday. Although I love to watch them, and hate the thought of their being shot, I have to admit, in fairness, that our neighbours use or eat every scrap of the deer they take.

Hmm. How would that look on an ingredient list.

Speaking of lists, Grammarly really, really does not like doubled modifiers. And the nagging I am getting about my use of commas is horrendous. I would love to have a good argument with whomever set it up.

Rough Kindness

 I spent yesterday writing up the minutes of a Hall Committee meeting, one called not just for general business but to do a post-mortem on the big dinner we held last Sunday. The workers from the dinner were told of the meeting and welcomed to the first part of it to do their analysis. I boiled this down to a one-page summary, plus appended notes on changes of the quantity of some food items. It took me all day. At one point JG came by and looked at me swinging in my office chair and said ‘You will wear that chair out’. I was Not Amused.

What is it about teasing and being teased? Some people do it and take it gracefully and graciously. It can be especially funny and meaningful if people pull it on themselves. I cherish the memory of a practice of the basketball team I was on in high school. This was the first practice after the summer break. We were all sitting on a bench in a row, waiting to start, and one of us looked up and down the row and said “You are all darker than I am!”  We were. Carol was what would then have been called a ‘Black’, because although she was, I am quite sure, of mixed race and was pale skinned, she had the characteristic hair and features we identify as African=American. She had been, lucky creature, in an office job during the summer holiday and those of us sitting on both sides of her had mostly been either lifeguards at outdoor pools or facilitators for children at local parks. And, that being the 1950’s, we were all tanned. Heavily tanned. Carol’s legs were paler than those of most of the rest of us. We all howled with laughter. I still smile when I think about it.

Other times and other comments do not make me smile. Comments delivered with a smile can still be cutting and meant to hurt. I think women are more likely to do this than men are, but I am not sure why I think that. I have overheard groups of boys and men saying awful things to one another and everyone laughing. I am unable to interpret whether that level of ‘teasing’ is a bonding activity or as cruel as it sounds from outside the group. If, for instance, someone said “You dickhead” to me, I would not laugh. But women tend not to use that kind of rough ‘kindness’? It’s the catty little digs that I hear, things like ‘What a pretty dress, dear. You must have made it yourself. And it is how and when it is said that determines the degree of nastiness intended.

The way I read it, some people tease because they want to be closer but do not know how. My mother’s grandfather comes to mind. My mother always said she hated him as a child because he teased but later realized he wanted to engage her but knew no other way. In the case of JG and the chair, though, I am not sure whether he was delivering a message about how long I had been messing about with the minutes or just commenting. And so, I took it as a criticism, gently delivered as a tease. And I did not like the idea that it was a criticism. And did my imitation of Queen Victoria in old age.

It is now the next day and I am back at the computer. Again. Note that my office does not have a door. We shall see what the day brings forth.

Marching in Step

 Warning: Long and probably boring unless you like this stuff!

A Discussion of Cohorts and All That

Back when I was in my forties and had a lot of energy, I ‘went back to school’ – I took a two-year ‘certificate’ course in Advertising at a local Community College. It was quite a culture shock; the next oldest student to me was about 25, and one of them had been in the same high school class as my daughter. It was fascinating, being back in class at that age. I was a whole lot worse at memorizing things than my classmates, but better at synthesizing, at putting a concept together in a coherent form.

The discussion and teaching around ‘generational cohorts’ was an area that I really loved. I suspect that we have all, for most of our reading lives, run into tags like ‘baby boomers’, ‘the beat generation’, and on and on. Journalists generated and used them, but it is in marketing that you hear about it constantly. My age group was often dismissed, not even mentioned much, in these lessons. It puzzled me as to why at first but, as the discussions continued, it became clearer that older people did not spend enough money to warrant the attention paid to younger cohorts. Like that really old joke about the ladies of Boston who, when asked where they bought their hats responded that they ‘had their hats’.

At any rate, I have been keyed into this kind of analysis ever since I took the course. I am putting up this second discussion, really, in answer to two comments; one that the reader had not heard about the tag and another that the tag was unfair, or unpleasant. Not sure which. It was not, as I told her, my tag, but one I found online. And so, the following material is from information I found online in a quick search.

As follows: “Generational marketing strategies were born when marketers realized that each age group responded to different messages on different channels. Each generation uses social media differently, and some have more brand loyalty than others. Attempting to target all generations at once can result in ineffective marketing.” [1]

“This birth period links groups in time together, Karl Mannheim says in his seminal work on generations, because it “creates the potential for the development of a shared consciousness that unites and motivates people…[and] represents nothing more than a particular kind of identity of location, embracing related age groups embedded in a historical-social process.”[2]

“I have to acknowledge that it is easier to call for more generational research than it is to actually do it... As we all know, many people who are born within a fifteen-year or so period will differ a great deal in consumption behaviour, religious beliefs, political views, etc. This does not mean there are not key similarities in comparison to previous groups, but it does bring significant noise into data analysis.” [3]

 “The issue is that people confuse generations, which are specifically defined by birth dates, with "cohorts," a slightly more vague grouping of people based on common experiences.  The divisions we know and reference are usually hybrids of the two. Here's the breakdown of the terms used and what people mean by them.”

The Silent Generation, also known as: The Depression Cohort, The Silent Generation (later), the G.I. Generation (early), the post-war generation, the seekers. Approximate dates: Born 1901-1924 (early) 1924-1943 (later)

Defining characteristics: Grew up, and frequently were defined by their experiences growing up, during The Great Depression and World War 2. Those too young to serve, called "The Silent Generation," experienced the war as children or very young adults, and were described by the Time story that named them as "grave and fatalistic," inclined to work very hard, but not say all that much.

Baby Boomers, Also known as: Boom generation, hippies (subculture) Approximate dates: 1946-1964

Defining characteristics: Loosely, those born during the post war "baby boom" of the late '40s and ensuing decades, where birth rates significantly increased. Among their defining experiences were the first space flight, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and later, the Vietnam War and Watergate. They developed some of the first counter-cultures, and though early boomers were known for their tendencies towards freedom and experimentation, that grew into a sense of disillusionment and distrust for the government for the latter members. In the '60s, the stereotype of the generation was a navel-gazing hippie, but now, the generation is more identified with those currently in power.”[4]

Enough, already. But the material does show some of the stronger issues we discussed.

What I tried to express in my post on the 11^th is that I felt, from my twenties on, a gap between myself and those just a few years younger. My nieces, only a few years younger than I was, seemed to be coping with a different culture than I had ever encountered. One of them, at the same university my husband and I had attended, really did describe a different ambiance entirely. Also, the teenagers I taught, in my first years out of university myself, dressed, spoke and acted in ways I never would have. Never would have been allowed to attempt, in fact, even if I had wanted to try.

The extreme example? The 1969 Sir George William University student riots.[5] « In 1969, Sir George Williams University students occupied the ninth-floor computer lab to protest how complaints of racism made by Black and Caribbean students had been mishandled and allegations dismissed. On February 11, after negotiations failed, university leaders called the police which resulted in the arrest of 97 students and long-lasting psychological, physical and social repercussions.”[6]. The nasty confrontation at Concordia (same university) last week appears to me to be not that different. I am not sure why it bothered me so much; the confrontation at the American Congress structured by Trump et al should have worried me more, but, no. Perhaps it is so distasteful because these students should be debating, thinking, researching, LISTENING to one another. Perhaps it is my age. I am just sad and discouraged.

 [1]  Citation lost but I think it is from Demographics of Age: Generational and Cohort Confusion by John Markert. Location is https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=27fbe077046f565f827c24557e48ac3496f00ebd

[2] From: Generational research and advertising to various age cohorts by Charles R. Taylor

Pages 683-685 | Published online: 30 Aug 2021 Location is https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02650487.2021.1959986

[3] From How To Know If You're Too Old To Call Yourself A Millennial by Max Nisen, https://www.businessinsider.com/definition-of-generational-cohorts-2013-5

[4] Nisen, ibid

[5] . Citation: https://www.concordia.ca/about/history/1969-student-protest.html.

[6] You can find the details of the incident at https://www.concordia.ca/about/history/1969-student-protest/timeline.html#:~:text=January%2026%2C%201969,-During%20the%20hearing&text=After%20several%20months%20of%20inaction,Hall%20Building You can find the details of the incident at https://www.concordia.ca/about/history/1969-student-protest/timeline.html#:~:text=January%2026%2C%201969,-During%20the%20hearing&text=After%20several%20months%20of%20inaction,Hall%20Building

Wearing my Poppy in Prose

 I am a member of a very small ‘cohort’, a cohort being the term used as people of a like age are characterized. I qualify as both a member of the Silent Generation and as a War Baby.  And I am the child of a father who served in the navy during almost all of WWII and its immediate aftermath. (He was discharged from service in 1946, skeletally thin and newly released from hospital.) My father had had only brief visits with me during those years; it was almost like a new family for him and for me when he returned home for good.

 The ‘Silent Generation’ refers to people who were born between 1925 and 1945. There are several theories as to where the label 'Silent Generation' originated. The children who grew up during this time worked very hard and kept quiet. It was commonly understood that children should be seen and not heard. The Silent Generation (age 77-94) is often characterized as thrifty, respectful, unassuming, and loyal. (Baby boomers (age 58-76) are portrayed as demanding, self-assured, independent, and competitive.*)

 Because of childhood experiences, the Silent Generation is characterized as holding people who tend to be thrifty and prefer to maximize the useful life of goods and who are distant from technology (although this gap has narrowed in recent years). For that reason, they are people who value talking in person, contact with others and the more traditional means of communication such as radio, television or newspapers. (I find many of us blogging, but that may simply a factor of where I am looking and whom I am reading.) In addition, as elderly people, they are a group that has contributed a lot to society thanks to their legacy, mentality and behaviour.

Understanding the differences between generations creates a bridge between them. Please note that most of the information above was put together after a quick Google search and cut and paste from Wikipedia and several other sources. The material below is all mine.

 I was born in 1942, while my father, RCNVR, was the Executive Officer of a corvette being built and fitted out in Levi, Quebec and later in Halifax. I was born because he, although he enlisted in the Navy shortly after the start of WWII, had a ‘shore job’ in 1941 in Winnipeg where my mother joined him. I qualify, therefore, as a ‘War Baby’ also, although not, according to definition, as a ‘War Child’. You can look this up to see the difference. Children my age are either the children of parents who did not fight in WWII or anomalies such as I am. We preceded the Boomers and, in most cases, were and are heartily sick of them. In my case, the high school I attended was under construction, being added to in order to house the bulge of Boomers following me and my English class, in particular, was accompanied by the noise of building. Boomers did me one favour, however. The schools were so desperate for teachers when I was in university that I was hired before I had even graduated.

What all of this is leading to is one observation; I hope, a pertinent one. I am a person who has, as a basic, been shaped by war. Certainly not in the way my peer group in Europe would have been shaped, but markedly. My parents’ beliefs and behaviour are a fundamental part of who I am. And hearing my father shouting commands to his gunners because a sharp clap of thunder had pushed him, sleeping, back onto his Corvette, that is formative for a child. Watching my mother obsessively count every penny, fear boats and water, hover over my father’s health, that was a large part of my childhood. They assumed I would be quiet, obedient, get good grades, help in the kitchen. (And in the yard – no brothers.) The way my country’s culture changed between 1959 and 1970 or so was confusing, even frightening, to me as well as to the adults who formed the bulk of the Silent cohort. In many ways it no longer seemed to be my world.

 I am writing this on Remembrance Day, as an honouring memory to my father, whose courage, decency and generosity should be known. He gave five years of his life to keep his family and his country safe, and the rest of his life to dealing with the personal aftermath. If I describe myself as puzzled at what the world I knew became, you should be able to imagine how my father was affected. He truly believed that there might be a world-wide collapse of civilization and urged me to teach my children how to use a bow and arrow and find food in the wild. And he worked, all his life, to make a safer world for me and for his beloved grandchildren, and for his community and his country. The world could use a few more like him, and not silent. Not any more.

*AC, this is not my thought. I cut and pasted it from Wikipedia or somewhere similar. Just so you know, I am not, what do they call it, 'dissing' you. This time.

Little Day Lost

 This was sort of a lost day. I have a recurring appointment each month to get my aged and horrible toenails cut by a nurse at our local Community Health Centre. She is just great, and I now have an appointment in 2024, because the holiday is causing a bit of a stretch. Yikes. But it is coming. The, shudder, Holiday Season is bearing down on us like a runaway freight train. Already the Christmas catalogues are out and I received my first envelope of cheap and ugly Christmas (and Season’s Greetings, of course) cards, tucked in with a request for money. They could have kept and used the money it cost to send it, IMHO.

And the mouse is there because there was a dead one in the hall when the inspectors came through. The new and extremely hard-working crew, who have tried everything to eradicate the little monsters, are not happy. I am dreaming of a resident Hall cat. Except that, cats being cats, it would probably gift the next inspector with a fine and very dead specimen of same, plus a hairball.

A short while ago JG discovered a bag of iced Christmas cookies in the downstairs freezer. They are now upstairs, thawed and stored in a cookie tin. What is left of them, that is. The good thing about the Holiday Season (Note my Use of Capitals, Nance) is that the YD will be home and make more of them. A lot more, if it is anything like last year. JG did find a whole bag of flour that she did not use in her mad cookie production, and he is finding it useful in his search for the Perfect chocolate chip cookie. I am glad to help with this search by testing each product. 

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. I am thinking about my parents, who were both hit hard by WWII, but that will make a post for tomorrow, I guess, to be sure of marking the day appropriately. I am not sure how to mark today, other than to note that I have done five days of gratitude, but should probably do 365. 

When I read the newspaper or online news, between two wars (actually, three, when I think about it), the sickening saga of Mr. Trump, the horror, again, in parts of Africa, and the absolutely disgusting incivility at Concordia, my gratitude is all about my country, my neighbourhood, my family and all the little things that make life worth living. Even if we did have a neighbour who went and got a Trump campaign sign and posted it on a Hydro pole. I never did find out why. He has since moved away. Phew.

And, to carry the theme on (thank you Jane, neighbour extraordinaire), I am grateful to you, for being you, among other things. And to your daughters, who keep me in the loop.

Gratitude. Day 5

Yesterday was supposed to be Day 4, and I was grateful for good, waterproof winter clothes. Only I didn’t tag it. I got involved in writing it out and finding a photo and forgot to do that. So, please note that yesterday I was grateful. 

I am grateful every day, in fact. For many, many things. Among these things are: a sixty-year and counting marriage; parents and grandparents who loved me and supported me and had me taught and allowed me to learn; teachers who cared and knew what they were doing; a city to live in that was clean, well-ordered and prosperous, mostly; good health and dental care that we could always afford; friends; a library close by; the time and money to travel. All of that.

But I am almost overwhelmed when I think how lucky, how blessed I am, in our two amazing children. They were and are intelligent, curious, hard-working, funny and generous. They have good health and outstanding careers. Okay, they were occasionally a royal pain as teenagers, not to mention teething, braces and the odd bad choice of boyfriends. Whose children missed those landmarks? But I have always been able to be proud of them.

I have always been able to talk with them, even if some conversations were pretty stressful. They bring me butter tarts and Belgian chocolate. They run their father’s errands and do his heavy lifting. They know how to work iPhones and can fix my (and his) problems. They even clean my kitchen. Although they have tasked me to look after both the grandkid and the granddog, child and animal were well-behaved and came with written instructions as needed. (And both the kid and the dog took pills without trauma.)  They have taken me on trips and vacations.

They even seem to like me. How unusual is that?

I suspect that every mother feels, in her secret heart, that her children are the absolute models of what offspring should be. Even if, sometimes, they really aren’t. But mine, mine, really are! And, oh my, am I grateful.

Snow Pants

It is shortly past 7:00 am as I write this and there is a two inch or so layer of nice new, wet snow showing in the early morning light. I will have to go and dig out my snow boots. I did not do this for the first snowfall because I knew it would melt, but this one is here for a while. And, this morning, I am grateful for … synthetics.

I grew up, you see, wearing wool winter clothes. And when they got wet, as you played outside, they stayed wet. Your mother had to hang them by a heat source to dry them and so you got one chance a day to skate or make snowmen or whatever. I got my first waterproof jacket sometime in, as I recall, university. And after I was married and my husband decided we would be snowmobilers, I got my first synthetic snowsuit. Bib pants with zippers, a matching jacket, and boots with an outer waterproof layer and felt liners. For the first time ever I was warm outside in the winter and it was wonderful. A revelation.

I know I have photos of myself encased in wool; I just have not got the time or patience to find them. But I did easily pull this one of myself in, I think, my second snowsuit; this one less bulky, as when you are working in the sugarbush, you get quite warm.

Note the mukluks. They were leather, useful with snowshoes, and were waterproofed by being rubbed with a wax product called, as I recall, 'Dubbin'. It came in a can and you got a fingerful of it and rubbed it in. Worked. Sort of.

 We had purchased, as recreational land, a hundred-acre plot that had been farmed once. Then it was probably logged over several times and it had grown back as ‘bush’ – many younger trees with trails through them. We used the snowmobiles to explore this land and surrounding trails and later to facilitate making maple syrup. The children travelled with us in a sleigh pulled behind my machine, and later, riding behind us. And they had synthetic snowsuits that could be wiped down, shaken off and dried quickly. I could put their soggy felt boot liners close to a heat source and back on their feet quite quickly. We got snowshoes and, later, cross-country skis. Winter was fun; for them and for me.

When my parents moved from Windsor to eastern Ontario, a colder and wetter climate, I persuaded my mother into snow pants. She loved them. My father bought a snowblower for the driveway and garments to go with it. He also discovered lined mittens. They both had quite a bit to say about the winter weather, but they managed it.

Just in closing, in the hall closet sits a pair of mukluks, belongings of the daughter presently living in Europe. She left them here last winter and I keep meaning to put a coat of waterproofing on them. Before she comes home this winter. I guess what goes around, comes around. After I dig out my boots, I will probably dig out the Dubbin.

By the Yard

 There was a lot of noise in our yard yesterday morning. The ‘Tree Guys’ that took down our two old and dangerous maples at the laneway exit were back. This time JG had identified seven big trees that, if they fell, would hit the house or the hydro wires or the cabin. There were two very tall basswoods, a maple and pine right beside the screen porch, a maple at the cabin and several others. So, there were three men, with chainsaws, a huge chipper, a 'cherry picker' and a fantastic and fun little jitney of a machine that picked up large, almost tree-sized branches, and deposited them at the splitter.

They had big chainsaws, small chainsaws and something that appeared to fit into a holster, all making roaring noises, in varying tones. At once. It was impressive, for sure.

I am not sure what took the most skill and sheer strength. One guy climbed the tallest basswood with foot spikes and a waist belt, limbing (cutting off the branches) as he went. Then he bounced back down, cutting off large chunks of the main trunk as he descended. He took off his jacket halfway up and dropped it. It stuck in a pine beside the tree he was working on. The next time I saw it, it was close to the ground. The next time after that, he had it on again.

The big limbs were being pulled by the guy who was running the bug, since the bug has a clamp on the front of it with which the operator can pick up big piles at once. And at speed. They all went full out, with two very short pauses between about 8:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. The guy with the rake? There was hardly a small branch or twig left where he had cleaned up. And it all went into the chipper.

So, what we have left are … chips.

I was too fascinated by the climber to get photos, but JG says he has some on his phone. 

Coffee!!!

 The Gratitude Challenge. The rules are that you post for five days listing three things each day that make you grateful, then pass the challenge on. A friend and I did this a few years ago and agreed that it is time to run it again. All contributors are more than welcome.

Day 2

I staggered out to the kitchen this morning, turned on my coffee maker, plopped a pod into it and hit the brew button. A short time later, I was slurping down my drink and life was starting to look livable. When I thought about this day’s Gratitude Challenge, the coffee maker was top of mind.

But, hey. Some clever man or woman designed it and others manufactured it. And it runs on electricity, as does the hot water tank that dispenses all the steaming water we need for showers, dishes and the like. As does the thermostat that controls the climate condition inside our house so that at the push of a lever, we can be warmer or cooler. As does the nest of wires supplying power to lights, chargers and, not least, this computer. So, the gratitude spreads out over a lot of designers, inventors and, not least, to the intrepid Hydro One crews that are called in when the supply is interrupted, at whatever hour they are needed, to climb poles, wield chainsaws and do finicky things in February temperatures with ungloved fingers. I try, daily, to be grateful for all I have that is supplied to me by so many dedicated people.

And, not least, I find myself grateful for the wonderful little inventions and adaptations that make it possible to do most things with eighty-one plus fingers, ears and eyes. Glasses and a magnifying lens, hearing aids, wide-handled peelers, all of those. You don’t think about them until you need them, and then they are extremely useful. A cane, walking poles, wide shoes with elastic laces. A magnifying mirror in which I can see my earlobes to insert stud earrings. And a coffee mug with a wide, easily graspable handle.

Inner (Dinner?) Gratitude.

 The Gratitude Challenge. The rules are that you post for five days listing three things each day that make you grateful, then pass the challenge on. We did this a few years ago and agreed that it is time to run it again. All contributors more than welcome. 

Day 1

I was at a dinner tonight at our local community hall, the @Watson's Corners Community Hall. The kitchen and serving areas were swarming with volunteers, cooking, carrying, pouring, cleaning, organizing, helping out. It was a fine, fine outpouring of neighbourly spirit and generosity. And, it was fun.

Besides that, the food was amazing. Way to go, Mike. No detail was too small to have been planned for and set up. Way to go, Chris.

I love where I live. I am grateful, so grateful, to be a part of this.

ps This is yesterday's post, just so you know I am trying.

Maple Cream Pie

Edited to add this photo of some of the pies donated to the hall's dinner. One of mine is second from the right in the first full row. We had a good turnout, although numbers were down from pre-COVID events. And the food was just excellent; 

Tomorrow the local community hall where I work is holding a fundraising dinner. It is a popular one, or has been in pre-Covid years. We get three hundred people or more fed inside two hours plus a bit. To do this we need vast quantities of food, including sixty pies. One of our members is tasked with phoning the baking list and collecting these. My order is for three; and I have, for many years, made maple cream pies.

At present, the filling is in the shells and cooling. Tomorrow morning I will whip up the whites of nine eggs with sugar and spread the resulting meringue over the filling, shove the pies into a 400°F oven to brown it, let it cool and transport, with some care, the pies to the hall. We are asked to bring the pies into the hall in the morning; the dinner starts at 4:00 pm – that is 5:00 stomach time since we go back to Standard Time tonight.

Which reminds me that I have to reset a whole whack of clocks before I go to bed. We have two that set themselves as does, thank goodness, the clock in my car. But there is the microwave, my alarm clock, the one in the laundry room… you know the drill, I am sure.

So, given that the very thought of Maple Cream probably makes you hungry, here is the recipe for this pie. Easy, as long as you have a source of, preferably, dark maple syrup.

1. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a heavy pan
2. Stir in 1/2 cup flour
3. Add 1 1/2 cups maple syrup and 1 1/2 cups boiling water.
4. Stir until thick and add three egg yolks. Cook over low heat for five minutes. Pour into baked pie shell and cover with a meringue made from three egg whites and 3 tablespoons white sugar. Bake in 400°F oven until lightly browned.

This recipe came to me from a very good friend who was an amazing cook. It is easy and never fails. Plus, if you use a small pie plate, there is enough left over in the pan to scrape out and eat off a spoon before you wash the pan.

I will add photos to this, perhaps, after I deal with the clocks.