05/05/2026
The cookbook didn’t start as a cookbook. It started as sticky pieces of paper on the counter, splattered with maple sugar and the occasional drip of syrup from a hurried taste test. For years, friends and customers would ask, “Do you have that recipe?” and the answer was always, “Somewhere… I think.”
One cold March morning — the kind where the sap runs slow and the coffee runs strong — the idea finally stuck. If these recipes were going to live on, they needed a real home. Not a scrap of paper. Not a card. A book.
The kitchen became a test lab. Some days it smelled like maple granola, other days like a steak house with barbecue sauce bubbling on the stove. There were triumphs, the Maple Balsamic Dressing that came out exactly right the very first time. There were also flops, like the maple muffins that puffed up beautifully, then collapsed into sad little craters. (They tasted great, though.)
Photo days were their own adventure. Picture this: a plate of maple chicken arranged just so, the light hitting it perfectly… and then Brad came in and decided that was the moment he could not wait for dinner, or the sun disappearing behind a cloud right as the syrup glistened just perfect. There may have been muttering. There was definitely a lot of laughter.
But the heart of the project was the same every day: capturing the way maple syrup is used at our house each and every day in real life. Not just pancakes and waffles — though those are sacred — but suppers, salads, snacks, and the little moments that make a kitchen feel like home.
When the final pages came together, it felt less like finishing a book and more like capturing a piece of New England comfort. A collection of recipes that had been lived with, cooked through, shared, and loved.
And now it’s out in the world — syrup drips, Brad’s hunger, collapsed muffins, and all — ready to become part of someone else’s kitchen story.