I get grumpy around this time of year. Everywhere else in the country people are celebrating the beginning of spring. My friend from northern California calls me with reports of "gorgeous, aromatic" flowering trees and fields of yellow and white jonquils. She describes the weather as "perfect." I threaten to hang up on her. Even in New York City, where I spent the weekend recently, the bulbs are inches high, peeking their heads out of that concrete jungle earth and announcing the end of winter. But here in Maine the piles of white, now turning a distinctly unattractive shade of gray, are ever present. Old snow sits in huge discarded heaps in the driveway, in the fields across the street, and as far as the eye can see. It is a constant reminder that spring in Maine has not arrived, and won't come until it damn well feels like it.

On top of it all my husband is missing. Each night when I crawl into bed, exhausted from this not-quite-winter-and-not-quite-spring limbo we're in, he is not there. I can hear him outside clanging around in the dark. This is not a man prone to disappearing or making strange noises in the dead of night, but it's maple season and he's a small-time enthusiastic harvester. Each year (or nearly each year, my husband is convinced the trees need a year off every now and then, like some kind of athlete in danger of being over-trained), we tap a half dozen maple trees and wind up with a small, but exceptional batch of syrup. Each year it's like a small miracle to me. During this time when there appears so little hope in nature, these trees drip clear, innocuous liquid, which tastes like barely sweetened water. But days later, after much boiling and sweet steam evaporation, we are left with golden amber syrup that can only be described as buttery. It is, without doubt, the best part of late March.

I've been cooking with our syrup as much as possible, and not just in the standard breakfast kind of dishes. Yes, I love to pour it on pancakes and waffles and French toast, and drizzle it over my morning toast, but the possibilities are so much greater. I like to glaze nuts in syrup and serve them in salads or as a snack. I like to spoon a few tablespoons over ham and chicken breasts with syrup (it creates an almost instant caramelized glaze if you add it to a hot saut` pan) and drizzle it over thick slices of winter squash or sweet potatoes and bake it until it's soft and sweet and melts in your mouth. It is there, in all its sweetness, to remind us that the seasons are changing, ever subtly.

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