Catskill Sugar Shack

A few weeks ago I headed up to the Catskills to visit my friend, chef & food stylist Chris Lanier.   I had been talking about coming up to visit for some time, with the intention of getting out of the city for some quiet winter relaxation, and (more importantly) to help harvest some sap from the maple trees on his 5-acre piece of land in Ulster County.  Unfortunately, mother nature has her ways of changing plans for you, and the weather was still a bit too cold for much sap to be running.  So we moved on to plan B.  Break up the icy 20 gallon collection of sap Chris had in storage, then proceed to spend the entire day splitting firewood, tending fires, boiling down maple syrup, sipping whiskey, and getting into some serious outdoor, open-fire cooking.  Sometimes, even when things don't go as planned, they still turn out pretty damn good.  Here's a few of the photos...