Take your sweet time exploring Maple Madness
There are few smells as sweet as the aromas from a rustic, wood-planked sugarhouse, with the one possible exception being the maple-walnut-stuffed French toast served on Sundays at the Cabernet Inn in the heart of New Hampshire’s ski country.
Maple-syrup lovers can get ample doses of both Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27, when this romantic bed and breakfast in North Conway, N.H., and six other neighboring inns in the picturesque Mount Washington Valley host their annual March Maple Madness.
“You can tap into your sense of whimsy and travel from inn to inn tasting savory or sweet maple treats,” said Cabernet Inn proprietor Jessica Zarenko, who plans to serve baked sweet-potato chips with three maple dipping sauces to complement the sugary dishes of maple ginger pecan ice cream and maple apple crisps served at other inns.
The two-day event also includes a “sapenger hunt,” in which guests have to answer questions from innkeepers in order to get clues and scavenge for items along the way. Some items are syrup-related, such as finding an old spile, the spigot used to tap maple trees, while others are more random, like an annual report from a New Hampshire town meeting. Extra points are given if the report is signed by a town clerk or an elected official, and even more points are awarded if the report is from the state’s smallest hamlet.
Those who score the most points can win $400 worth of goodies. Guests also stop at sugarhouses during the inn-to-inn tour to watch “maple sugaring” and sample products.
“If the sap’s running, they’ll be boiling sap into syrup. That’s an amazing process to watch. If you’ve never seen it, it’s magical to watch this clear liquid being boiled into pure maple syrup. And the smell is unbelievable,” said Zarenko, a former Marriott food services manager from Millbury, Mass., who moved to North Conway in 2003 when she and her husband, Bruce, a software engineer, bought the Cabernet Inn.
Tickets for the March Maple Madness weekend are $15 per person and include a maple recipe booklet. Guests staying at any of the seven participating inns (go to BBInnsMWV.com or call 800-866-6131 for more details) pay $10.
The Cabernet Inn is offering a maple madness deal: $329 per couple for a two-night stay, dinner at the Notchland Inn, two breakfasts, tickets to the tour and sugar maple candy treats.
Skiers heading to Vermont on March 19 and 20 can also get a taste of freshly made, 100 percent natural maple syrup during Vermont Maple Open House Weekend, when 140 of the state’s 2,000 sugarhouses open their doors to the public. The sugarhouses, which range from shacks with small wood-fired evaporators to modern facilities with shiny equipment, will offer a range of maple syrup products, including maple-frosted doughnuts, maple salad dressings, maple-coated nuts, maple cotton candy, maple soft-serve ice cream, maple lollipops and maple jelly. For details, go to vermontmaple.org.
Maple-syrup lovers can get ample doses of both Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27, when this romantic bed and breakfast in North Conway, N.H., and six other neighboring inns in the picturesque Mount Washington Valley host their annual March Maple Madness.
“You can tap into your sense of whimsy and travel from inn to inn tasting savory or sweet maple treats,” said Cabernet Inn proprietor Jessica Zarenko, who plans to serve baked sweet-potato chips with three maple dipping sauces to complement the sugary dishes of maple ginger pecan ice cream and maple apple crisps served at other inns.
The two-day event also includes a “sapenger hunt,” in which guests have to answer questions from innkeepers in order to get clues and scavenge for items along the way. Some items are syrup-related, such as finding an old spile, the spigot used to tap maple trees, while others are more random, like an annual report from a New Hampshire town meeting. Extra points are given if the report is signed by a town clerk or an elected official, and even more points are awarded if the report is from the state’s smallest hamlet.
Those who score the most points can win $400 worth of goodies. Guests also stop at sugarhouses during the inn-to-inn tour to watch “maple sugaring” and sample products.
“If the sap’s running, they’ll be boiling sap into syrup. That’s an amazing process to watch. If you’ve never seen it, it’s magical to watch this clear liquid being boiled into pure maple syrup. And the smell is unbelievable,” said Zarenko, a former Marriott food services manager from Millbury, Mass., who moved to North Conway in 2003 when she and her husband, Bruce, a software engineer, bought the Cabernet Inn.
Tickets for the March Maple Madness weekend are $15 per person and include a maple recipe booklet. Guests staying at any of the seven participating inns (go to BBInnsMWV.com or call 800-866-6131 for more details) pay $10.
The Cabernet Inn is offering a maple madness deal: $329 per couple for a two-night stay, dinner at the Notchland Inn, two breakfasts, tickets to the tour and sugar maple candy treats.
Skiers heading to Vermont on March 19 and 20 can also get a taste of freshly made, 100 percent natural maple syrup during Vermont Maple Open House Weekend, when 140 of the state’s 2,000 sugarhouses open their doors to the public. The sugarhouses, which range from shacks with small wood-fired evaporators to modern facilities with shiny equipment, will offer a range of maple syrup products, including maple-frosted doughnuts, maple salad dressings, maple-coated nuts, maple cotton candy, maple soft-serve ice cream, maple lollipops and maple jelly. For details, go to vermontmaple.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment