Old-Fashioned Fun...New Fangled Yum!

Okay, that was pathetic rhyming. What can I say? I'm sorely out of practice at writing eye-catching titles. Have any of you ever read the maple sugaring scene from the Little House on the Prairie series--I'm not sure of the exact book--where Ma pours some hot syrup on the snow and makes homemade maple sugar candy? For any of you who've never had it--you are missing out on a critical life experience--it's delicious! Very sweet/creamy with a melt-in-your-mouth texture. An all-natural truffle! So....trying to duplicate that ethereal experience, I ventured outside into our sub-zero weather--okay, a bit of a hyperbole, but not by that much!--armed with a jug of raw material and fierce determination. Perhaps because I didn't heat the syrup first, or maybe for some chemical quirk, the syrup didn't harden, but oozed into the snow. :-( Not to be deterred, I seized my nearby spoon, and ate my first maple-sugar flavored slushy. Ummmm...almost worth the incessant driveway shoveling!