Justamere Tree Farm: Embracing Artisanal Syrup Craftsmanship and Rustic Farm Life with Kim, Kelly, and Deb

Embark on a pastoral adventure with Kim, Kelly, and Deb of Justamere Tree Farm as they trade their government badges for the rustic charm of farm life. Their story isn't just about tapping maple trees; it's a symphony of passion and craftsmanship that drives their entrepreneurial spirit. Witness their journey from wildlife conservationists to artisanal syrup producers, navigating the unpredictable tides of climate change that have them boiling sap as early as January. They open up about the day-to-day life on the farm, the embrace of their local community in Worthington, and the living arrangements that keep their operations close-knit and full of heart.

Dive into the competitive cauldron of the maple syrup market where our trio stands tall against the industrial giants. They discuss the power of staying true to traditional methods and how it makes their products stand out, despite the market's push towards quantity over quality. We explore how technological advancements threaten time-honored practices, yet Kim, Kelly, and Deb's unwavering commitment to excellence ensures that each drop of their syrup tells a story of dedication and hard-earned expertise—ingredients you won't find on any supermarket shelf.

We delve into the off-season ingenuity of a syrup farm, discussing the importance of marketing, community sustainable practices, and the sheer joy of crafting a product that is truly a labor of love. Keep these enriching tales of sustainable agriculture and culinary adventure in mind, and don't forget to join the conversation with us on social media for more enlightening journeys.

Thank you Kim, Kelly and Deb!!,
https://www.justameretreefarm.com/

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Transcript

Chef James: 0:14

Hey everyone, welcome to Chef Sense. I'm your host, chef Massey. Alright, so today on the podcast, I am so excited Jackson field trip, right yeah this drive was so special, wasn't it beautiful yeah. You know, and the colonial walls and everything. I mean it's New England, you know, that never gets old. So we are at Just a mere Tree Farm. Thank you all for having us. We can just go around and introduce ourselves. Our listeners you go to my left here.

Kim: 0:42

All right, Hi, I'm Kim and I'm one of the co-owners of Just a Mere Tree Farm.

Chef James: 0:46

Okay.

Kelly : 0:46

I'm Kelly. I'm another owner of Just a Mere Tree Farm.

Deb: 0:49

And I'm Deb, I'm the third owner of Just a Mere Tree Farm.

Chef James: 0:53

And we have a loaded podcast. So you know I've always enjoyed the products that you guys provide from your maple syrup and, I have to say, the granola. I just love the flavor in there, the toasting and the time you put into it Um, it makes a magical morning I mean, oh well, thank you.

Kim: 1:13

Do you eat it straight up or do you put it on?

Chef James: 1:15

I just do a little bit of milk, yeah, you know, and just go after it that way. Um, I've actually done muffins with it. That's been really good. So, yeah, just a variety there.

Kim: 1:25

Yeah, we like it on yogurt and we put a little bit of maple cream on top, oh wow. Kind of crunchy sweet.

Chef James: 1:31

Right.

Kim: 1:32

And I think what makes our granola a little bit unusual from other granolas is we put in sesame seeds.

Chef James: 1:39

Oh, and so you sort of taste that Right, right and you're not quite sure what it is and you're like oh, that's a good flavor.

Deb: 1:45

Yeah.

Kim: 1:45

And it's I don't know that I've run into many other granolas that have sesame seeds and then a little bit of the toasted coconut.

Deb: 1:52

Until now, and now they're all going to have sesame seeds. Yeah, I know.

Chef James: 1:58

There goes the secret, right? No, but we won't like what got you all together and what got you into the industry. I mean, what was the previous life like? I mean what was before Justin Mayer.

Deb: 2:16

So we tell everybody that we all met in Alaska, and that's mostly true. But Kelly and I moved to Alaska together, where I met Kim and Kim and I both worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Chef James: 2:24

Oh, wow.

Deb: 2:26

I met Kim and Kim and I both worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, so so the federal conservation agency and worked together for 10 years. 15 years and um, and we all subsequently moved out of Alaska.

Deb: 2:37

But um, but Kim and I had talked about sort of retiring and starting a farm together and and COVID was um such kind of a shock to our system that we were like maybe we ought to think about retiring a little bit sooner, and so this was available and we just I mean, you said it yourself, it's beautiful around here yes all fell in love with it and fell in love with the community. Worthington's just a a wonderful place to live yeah, so, oh, that's great.

Kim: 3:05

Okay, yeah, I was gonna ask what it's like to live out here. Um. Do you all live close by or or at? Do you live here?

Kelly : 3:11

here you can see one of the places we live and the other one is just up through those trees yeah, yeah, so you're, you're right here yeah, yeah, and in part there's a main house and a guest house and kim lives in the guest house and the main house is an Airbnb, oh okay.

Kim: 3:28

Nice and how far is the nearest grocery store?

Deb: 3:32

Well, what do you call a grocery?

Kim: 3:34

store. There's like a small thing close by.

Deb: 3:38

It's the Hilltown Market right that used to be Sawyer Farm that provides um all sorts of produce, a lot of produce, but also um meats and eggs and and things and from the local and they also do do snap benefits and have you know double snap benefits and things like that for a lot of the hilltown families but we have to go to um northampton for yeah what my mom would call big grocery shopping, and that's about a 40 minute drive.

Chef James: 4:07

Yeah, okay, you know how has your season been this year.

Deb: 4:10

The season since we bought the farm. So this is our fourth season on the farm and you know we came in eyes wide open, knowing that climate change was going to have an impact on the way that people approach the sugaring season. But I personally have been surprised that it's been as quick and sort of as difficult to predict. So it's not just that the season is happening earlier. The season's happening earlier and it sort of is like you know, it gets cold, it gets warm, it gets cold it gets warm.

Deb: 4:43

And last year we had had what a couple of days, couple of three days, in the upper 60s, low 70s. It just killed us we didn't have that this year, but we started tapping on december 30th right crazy early well, I know I was watching that on instagram.

Chef James: 4:57

I'm like, well, if they're doing, I gotta get out there on my little maple trees. So I just well, it's funny because I do that with foraging for mushrooms, because you know, you can see where it starts to hit in the region. So I'm like, all right, they're the pros, I'm going to jump in there.

Kelly : 5:10

So we're the first um sugar bush to make syrup this year, so okay, so that was january, 14th. Yeah, that was our first boil, yeah yeah, and we talked to the previous owner and he was.

Kim: 5:23

He just was shaking his head, saying yeah, he had owned the farm for 38 years and had never, ever boiled that early.

Chef James: 5:29

Wow well and that's all as long as it's. You know you can extend it. If you start early and hopefully it ends at a relative expected time every year, then it's like money, you know. It's that ability to like push or that days of sunlight for a farmer you Once. You're waiting for that window seven or eight hours or something, but it's like whoa, it's go time. Yeah.

Kelly : 5:50

Well, as it turns out, the season ended probably two weeks early. We normally are the first or second week of April ending. Several of the farmers in our area. There's still one trying to make a go at it, but everyone else was like no, this, it's not sustainable yeah it's not worth um so our last boil was um last saturday, the 16th.

Chef James: 6:11

Okay, wow, okay so start early and early. It can happen that way well well, and last year what happened?

Kim: 6:18

we sort of missed the january run because we had the same weather pattern that we had this year, which is why we jumped on tapping so early this year. We didn't want to miss January, but you know, as Deb was saying, historically nobody expects to be tapping and boiling in January.

Chef James: 6:34

Right. So looking at the trees and like the acreage of this farm, what are you set at? What are we Like? How many acres and how many trees we now have 400 acres. Oh, wow.

Deb: 6:47

But we don't tap all of those. We're mostly wooded. We have, let's see, probably 50 to 60 is in grass and hay. And then the rest of it is woodlands. We lease taps from some of our neighbors, so all told we have about 6,500 taps out there.

Chef James: 7:09

Wow.

Deb: 7:10

So we've tried to expand a little bit to try to help mediate those ups and downs and help us get a consistent crop. It just spreads us kind of thin too during the season.

Chef James: 7:22

I can only imagine. Wow, okay, us kind of thin too during the season.

Kelly : 7:26

I can only imagine wow, okay, 6500 taps. We try to follow the ethic of just one tap per tree. If we have a really large tree over 24, 36 inches, then that may get two taps, but for the most part there's 6500 trees out there that are tapped right now, yeah, wow, and I know, like it's.

Chef James: 7:46

You know I was trying to be careful with mine, that I don't, you know, do too many taps on there. Do you weaken the tree when you over-tap?

Deb: 7:53

If you're on gravity, it shouldn't be that much of a problem. Yeah, okay, but we're, you know we're on vacuum, and so it's pulling from a greater area.

Chef James: 8:03

Yeah, that's great. Okay, wow, can you describe the season how it starts in maple syrup Golden to amber, to dark.

Kelly : 8:13

No, you're right, Exactly the lighter syrup comes off first, and syrup that also the golden, it doesn't have a real strong maple flavor. In fact, I myself can't taste the maple flavor. Yeah, yeah, it's more of a nutty flavor Nutty, thank you.

Chef James: 8:26

I thought I, that's great, there we go.

Kelly : 8:28

There's a chef here somewhere.

Chef James: 8:30

Yeah, I know, gee. Well, it's funny Cause I'm like when I try it I'm like nuttiness, like hazelnut and Well.

Kelly : 8:38

So it has to do with the sugars. So it starts out the season with one sugar molecule that has a lower boiling point. So when you're boiling it to make syrup, to get to the right concentration of sugar, you don't have to boil it as long yeah so it stays light. It doesn't caramelize like you. You know what you're making caramel yeah and then, as the season progresses, you have more, actually, bacterial growth in the tree that lends to the flavoring.

Kelly : 9:08

Oh, that's right, Okay, and then it breaks down that one large molecule and then it breaks it down to two other molecules that have different boiling points, and one of them has a high boiling point, the first molecule. So it comes to syrup quicker the higher concentration quicker and the other molecule, once it starts getting broken down, has a lower boiling point. You have to boil it longer.

Chef James: 9:31

Yeah.

Kelly : 9:31

So it starts caramelizing in the pan and changing color. Yeah, so that's why late season syrup is very dark.

Chef James: 9:38

Yeah, and it has that coffee kind of more robust flavor Tons of different yeah.

Kim: 9:45

So we only bottle uh two of the types of syrup we bottle dark and robust and very dark and strong oh, which are the? Late season sap yeah late season sap um. We don't make any golden delicate. We just don't make that okay at our farm.

Chef James: 10:00

Okay, our trees don't like it, but the lightest stuff that we do make, we use that to make our cream and our candies okay, and things uh, of that, of that sort, and so we save our darker syrup for bottling and so when you're making the maple cream and these things, it's just continuing that candy and process or that temperature and time.

Kim: 10:21

Right it is yeah, there's a difference. So when we make the cream, uh, we heat, heat it up to about 237 degrees and then we cool it down in a cool room and then we have a cream machine that puts air it doesn't put air, it turns, it's more like butter oh, you want to be creamy, right, if you put air in it. It'd be kind of like uh, yeah, right, okay, okay, and we want it to be nice and creamy and not grainy at all okay, wow if we make something like candy, it's kind of the opposite process.

Kim: 10:49

We heat that up too, but then we put it into a machine that has these big paddles it has like a little spinny pigtail thing and that uh starts to granulate the okay, the syrup, and then that's when we get kind of that. You know that typical traditional maple sugar candy.

Chef James: 11:07

Okay, wow, quite the diverse. You know selection and it's a smart thing. I think it's business too. You're like, how many ways can I use this product? Because you know maple syrup on the gallon is it's gold. You know it's definitely something that you're rationing out to the breakfast cooks in the morning, you know, in front of the house team, and can we talk about the ratios or the process in making maple syrup so people can really understand the devotion to this? Because it's it's a lot of work, patience and love.

Kelly : 11:39

Starting four years ago, but Deb and I actually made syrup as a hobby for nine years before that.

Chef James: 11:45

Okay.

Kelly : 11:46

But to see 2% sugar or 3% sugar used to be the norm and now are even higher in some places, and that has to do with the big crown of leaves on top of the tree. So the bigger, the healthier. Beautiful trees would produce more sugar okay in their sap, but oh, and environmental factors as well. Well, and that have lent to why.

Kelly : 12:08

This is why it's decreasing now okay so we started the season this year with one point, so we back up. So when it was two percent, that's when everyone would say, oh, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, and that was the ratio. Yeah, okay, I remember that now so now we start with 1.7% sugar in the sap. And so that means that translated to 52, 51, 52 gallons More sap to make the yeah.

Kelly : 12:35

So we ended the season at well. Our chart doesn't go this low, but the lowest it goes is when you have 1% sugar in your sap. It was 89 gallons of sap.

Chef James: 12:51

Wow, yeah, oh my gosh, that's unbelievable, wow.

Deb: 12:55

So we have four storage tanks one, two, three. We actually have five, including including our neighbor that we collect from okay we.

Deb: 13:02

We use that to calculate, like what you know. We have a reverse osmosis machine that takes out 90 of the water, helps us concentrate it up to about 15 before we start the boil. But it's constantly especially as it's the season's moving on and you're making darker syrup and the weather's a little bit warmer and you've got more bacteria you're trying to move everything through. So for us it's constantly pick it up from here and move it there and moving everything around and then doing the calculation of like when it's time to boil and how much we're going to make of like when it's when it's time to boil and how much we're going to make.

Chef James: 13:43

And you're, when you're looking at it. I mean I'm, I have my hydrometer, I use a, you know, typically, is that what was that?

Kelly : 13:48

bricks 66 or in that range I mean, 66.9 is what they make.

Deb: 13:53

Yeah, but we know that's a little yeah, but we we're not going to give the full number here, because there's isn't that kind of 66.

Kelly : 14:00

So let's say we make ours at 67 because, or a little bit higher, because people love thick syrup they do right.

Kim: 14:08

Yeah, that's a different mouthfeel, I mean you don't think that you know, let's say 66.9, you wouldn't think that mouthfeel would be much different than 67.4. But it really is like you get that nice full mouthfeel yeah and um, and it's just a little bit extra sugar content in the syrup, that.

Chef James: 14:25

That helps that along and so I know we were talking about earlier. Can we kind of go into also the pricing and the market and you know what your challenges are with that? I mean, because I was talking about the what was that? The maple mafia, the maple mafia video. I I'm like, oh, what about that, the Maple Mafia, the Maple Mafia video? I'm like, oh, what about that? And that market that kind of is challenging for you all up in Canada, is that?

Kim: 14:48

Well, you know, because of that, they are mostly the drivers of pricing the whole industry. You know we and we're little guys. You know we, only little guys compared to them. They have hundreds of thousands of taps on some of their farms up there. And they're a big industrial. A lot of them are big industrial conglomerations and they have everything automated. We have a little wood-fired evaporator that we go down and we're throwing wood in there every day.

Kim: 15:18

Oh, wow, okay, and you know you can dial in some evaporators. You can dial in when the draw comes off and you dial in when your anti-foamer goes in there.

Deb: 15:27

Well, it's all automated in those big, you know, even here in Vermont, right, and that's something that we don't ever want to do as a chef, you know which is a great point want to do as a chef, you know, which is a great point, right, but like I, I don't know that it tastes different, but I feel like it tastes different by using wood and kind of using using your intuition and your taste buds and your you know your eyes to look at the color and stuff.

Kim: 15:52

It's like it, it's, it's a craft and I think what you're saying, yeah, what it's like a human did this right exactly, and that's what the three of us. Do you know? Know, during the boiling season we have people out in the woods that are chasing leaks for us and trying to keep our vacuum tight, but the three of us are down in the sugar house. You?

Kim: 16:07

know trying to pull it off at just the right taste and just the right temperature and just the right sugar content, and trying to get the fire so that it's nice and consistent, because maple doesn't like drama, so we don't want to fire up our evaporator way high and then let it go way low and that kind of thing. But as far as pricing goes, just because those big conglomerates up in Canada can drive the price of the whole industry. So we're a little bit bounded you know by what they can charge.

Kim: 16:43

You know, if they're charging $18, $20 a quart.

Chef James: 16:48

I mean we could calculate how much it would really cost us to make a quart of syrup, but we're still going to be in that $20, $25 range, because you don't want to overprice yourself and then it moves slower and it's all tough, yeah, and you know they've got that that volume opportunity and that's where, even like looking at you know even I mean it's different than SAP.

Chef James: 17:10

But you know the complex ag system where you know again my family, we had a thousand acres almost at one point and you know I kind of have a history and some things I learned and you know coming up, you know World War One when he, my great grandfather, came back and founded our farm and my grandfather took it over, especially after World War Two. But some of those practices you know and that mechanized equipment and all this, that now you set the tractor to a GPS and you know it's just it's getting interesting how you know the ag system is kind of moving ahead and you're kind of stepping away from really the beauty of what you're doing. The craft you know and that's pretty amazing, so wow.

Deb: 17:54

Well, I think we're finding in all sectors of farming right is like the old ways may have been the right ways anyway like just for our health, for the land's health for, for, for the animal's health, for tree health and everything else yeah to industrialize something especially food like that goes in and you know something that you put in your body. Sure, we just care about it and I mean we want to make really great products, but we also want to um, we also really believe in the like working working lands and working lands for wildlife and the integrity and the vision.

Chef James: 18:35

yeah, that's unbelievable and that's it's inspiring. You know, and honestly I do feel you can taste a difference. I mean, if we were to you know, jackson, you and I were talking about it here but like you go and you get a chicken breast from you know one of the big ones out there and you put it next to you know, a chicken breast from Mill River Farm, from Jan over there, you will taste a difference, you're going to taste a difference and you're going to get so much more from it, you know. So, anyways, that's kind of, but it's.

Kelly : 19:09

Well, that's certainly true, like so Canada, will you know? Because they mass produce their syrup and they set a price all across Canada and that's all. The farmers are going to get paid for it. But then they send it down here, literally in the big box stores, they'll sell a quart of syrup for $16, $15, and we can't compete with that. But you enter that syrup into a contest and they immediately are like oh, bad, bad syrup.

Chef James: 19:40

You're right.

Deb: 19:40

You know, they can really tell the difference between that.

Kelly : 19:44

You know, because they do a lot of blending. They salvage every little drop of syrup. They can even late season syrup that you or I would not even put on a sweetener.

Chef James: 19:56

Yeah, yeah.

Kelly : 19:57

And they blend it and they sell it, and it's cheap, but it tastes cheap, yeah, yeah, and they blend it and they sell it, and it's cheap, but it tastes cheap.

Chef James: 20:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I'm looking at the table syrup too that a number of you know people grew up with. That's not even you know corn syrup, caramel, colorina, like when you're at the restaurant, the default is to serve like the corn syrup. That's stuff In a lot of restaurants, right, and you have to ask oh, can I have the real syrup?

Kim: 20:19

And then they charge you. And then they charge you Like $30 for a little thing of real syrup.

Deb: 20:23

Yeah exactly, we have half a pint so you can bring your own.

Chef James: 20:25

Yeah, pocket size Perfect, always have, yeah, maybe we should make little single shots. I'm down with that yeah, yeah, I might have to get Berkshire Mountain Distillers involved on that Like ketchup A little marinated, yeah, oh, wow.

Kim: 20:41

Stop, that's awesome. Sneak into movies, you know, with your own candy. Yeah, yeah, right, oh, my gosh Restaurant proof.

Deb: 20:49

I don't know that sounds like something else.

Chef James: 20:54

Maybe we should hold on doing this episode until you guys get that final. That's a part. Yeah, that's funny, you know. I was also curious and I'm just throwing this thought out there because whether it's mushrooms or produce or a lot of things wine, do you find that the terroir has some level in making your syrup taste different than ioka valley or some of these others?

Kim: 21:21

could that play a part, or am I just being no, it's absolutely true okay, and I didn't realize that so I moved out here from portland oregon and I was in the willamette valley for a long time and and, uh, you know, you travel through the willamette valley tasting pinot noirs that are, you know just two or three miles away from each other and, and you know, if they're single vineyard Pinots, you can absolutely taste a difference and they could come from the same vineyard.

Kim: 21:47

Yeah, but they're just from you know separate little grape vine or vineyards. And so the same is true here. You can taste, even within our own process. You know, as the season progresses you can taste. Each individual drum tastes a little bit different.

Chef James: 22:05

Wow.

Kim: 22:06

And I thought I found that fascinating when we bought the farm and we'd open up a drum and and you know it was like, wow, this one tastes different because this one was made a week ago and it's still dark, robust, but it was made, but it's the same but there's still flavor.

Chef James: 22:18

Wow, it's still dark, robust, but it was made over, but it's the same, but there's still flavor, wow.

Kim: 22:20

And so just but we, you know, we've tried syrup from Red Bucket, an old sugar house that's not in business anymore. We've tried syrup from them and they're just what, three miles away.

Chef James: 22:35

Yeah, and they taste different.

Kim: 22:37

Their process is different than ours but yeah, it definitely tasted.

Chef James: 22:41

I was just curious about that. You know there's a syrup that I've tried that really I was kind of mind blown Black walnut syrup. I'm like, wow, where have you?

Deb: 22:51

been all my life. You know it's like I've got to get a little.

Chef James: 22:53

Have you tried birch syrup? Yes, and that's really good too, but you know I'm better with a birch soda than I am anything else.

Kelly : 23:00

Yeah, I don't want that on my pancakes. I'd use it for something else. And they're looking at beech now using beech trees to make syrup.

Chef James: 23:07

Yeah, it's amazing.

Kim: 23:14

They're making a big leaf maple syrup out in washington state. That has a very, very strong place that you wouldn't even know it was maple syrup.

Chef James: 23:17

Okay, so different wow um, but it's.

Kim: 23:20

They don't make a lot of it and they don't have those really cold spells for a long period of time okay warms up cold.

Chef James: 23:26

Warms up, cold warms up, okay, like throughout the whole season, and so I think they're selling it for $500 a gallon, something like that I mean it's very expensive. When you're looking at your off season. Are you working?

Kim: 23:41

That's my question there, so when is that Is there?

Chef James: 23:44

I mean, how does that work? What is? It's a different part of the season, but we're not off, it's just phases right. Yeah.

Deb: 23:51

The different phases of things, and so we have that six to eight week window of making syrup okay, and and I I mean it's no different than you know, any other kind of a farmer, where you have your window and you're hoping that nature, nature, uh is good to you and you make a lot and because, like it costs you, it costs us nothing.

Deb: 24:13

It costs us no more to make 10 gallons versus, you know, 2,000. I mean it's going to cost us almost the same amount of money because we're we're putting everything into the woods and then you know, and then the rest of the year is making products and marketing it and going to market and writing grants and you know social media and all, all the things.

Kim: 24:36

Yeah, and taking care of the grounds and yeah, that's constant cutting and cutting firewood.

Chef James: 24:41

I mean we spent well. Yeah, I didn't realize putting up firewood and yeah, how many like cords of firewood do you go through for a season? I mean that's between seven and ten. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, wow, and at any one time we have at least 15 to 20 cords set up to go. Okay, yeah, yeah, you're in a cycle, yeah.

Kelly : 25:01

And we utilize all just fallen trees. We don't go out and harvest trees at all.

Chef James: 25:05

Okay, nice, there's plenty of fallen trees. Yeah, that's.

Deb: 25:09

And our community's wonderful because they're like, hey, justam, that's. And our community is wonderful because they're like, hey, just a mirror, we'll take our trees. Hey, we've got it like we've cut a bunch of trees, come get them.

Kim: 25:15

And so we've been doing that for the last year one day and just a flatbed with trees showed up and said hey, somebody said you wanted these trees. And kelly's like yeah, sure go put them down there.

Chef James: 25:25

Oh, that's great.

Kim: 25:25

Wow, yeah, okay, please don't show up with a flatbed full of trees. Let us know if you're coming. Yeah right, Give us a call first Geez.

Chef James: 25:38

Well, that's funny too, like growing up in Oregon outside of Portland. I grew up on Mount Hood as a kid, so small logging town up there, but I just remember because our existence up there was a lot of wood hauling you know, and clearing the forest. Our existence up there was a lot of wood hauling, you know, and clearing the forest and that's very interesting what you guys go through and and having that season keep moving through.

Kim: 25:58

So okay, um you know what I will say. It used to be. I mean, we used to have a couple weeks off in january, kind of the end of the holidays, because we have an online business as well, so during the holidays. So january used to be our, you know kind of down couple weeks, but we don't even have that anymore yeah, like I said, now it turns out it's the end of march.

Deb: 26:18

That's great. I mean, it's exactly yeah wow, nice, all right.

Chef James: 26:23

So favorite dishes I mean you guys have favorite dishes you like to use maple syrup in any one that just stands out, or well, I made a blueberry buckle for you um this this morning and, uh, this is my great-grandmother's recipe.

Deb: 26:39

That was always a delight my, my family's, from um an island off the coast of maine, and so maine blueberries and and all of that so she made that and what I did is I. I didn't think it could be improved upon, but I re I replaced the conventional sugar with maple sugar and then use maple crumbles for the streusel topping. That's beautiful and that's just been one of the one of our favorites Cause I mean it's just wonderful and blueberries are oh yeah, oh yeah, Personally.

Kelly : 27:10

Well, it's just wonderful when blueberries are in season, oh yeah, but personally, well, there's sort of two. One is using syrup and acorn squash and not sugar.

Chef James: 27:18

Oh yum, Okay, and the other?

Kelly : 27:20

is our maple seasoning over there. We use that with olive oil on a chicken, on the smoker.

Chef James: 27:27

I was going to ask that Fantastic Wow, that's great and that is amazing.

Deb: 27:31

It's also really great on root vegetables, like unbelievable, like just brussels sprouts and other butternut squash.

Chef James: 27:38

I bet or oh, yeah, our honey, nut squash and, yeah, okay, a lot of squash.

Kim: 27:43

Yeah, absolutely what my favorite things to do. So with our maple cream. You know everybody always asks us what we can do with it. You know it's like you can put it on toast and you can put it's like well, you can put it on toast and you can put it on English muffins and you can put it in your oatmeal. But you can also make a savory dish and you mix it with a little bit of mustard, like Dijon mustard or Stoke-on mustard. And then you can put it on salmon and roast it.

Chef James: 28:05

Oh boy, I was thinking pork, but salmon's even better.

Deb: 28:09

Yeah, Wow, yum, salmon's even better. Yeah, wow, yum, okay, you can also the maple cream also, if you cut it with cream cheese, it makes a really nice maple cream frosting for whatever you want to put it on top of a carrot cake. It's unbelievable yeah, okay that sounds.

Kelly : 28:24

Add that in there, that sounds really good yeah, there you go.

Deb: 28:27

There's some homework. Salty cheese, exactly. Salty cheese, exactly, no, totally.

Chef James: 28:34

You know, and the funny thing too is you mentioned this as we're talking about it, but adding maple syrup and cutting the sugar. I notice I enjoy that, you know, and it imparts some more flavor into what you're doing. It really does you know whether you're doing cakes or.

Deb: 28:51

And there's a lot of research going on now about um benefits of maple. It's got the lowest glycemic index the lowest calorie preserving of any sweetener, including honey, and it's got all sorts of like minerals and uh macronutrients yeah, and in it micronutrients yeah, yeah, kind of no.

Chef James: 29:10

it's some magical stuff that looks so good over there. I think it's calling our names.

Kelly : 29:18

Maybe just mine. It's calling mine there we go Double trouble.

Chef James: 29:23

Well, all right. Well, I just want to thank you all for the opportunity to come in here and share part of your day in the inspiration that you all provide here that goes into those bottles and warms a day.

Deb: 29:40

Well, thanks for what you do, highlighting local producers and local food scene and all the organic products and everything else oh yeah, and how good they are for you and how good they are to cook with right.

Chef James: 29:52

Yes, they are. So where can the listeners I listeners and we've got a variety from you know across the us and even abroad, but it best place to locate if they want to pick this up and locate you guys and website and all there's an online website okay justamiretreefarmcom and we're at the great barrington farmers market uh, the whole season.

Deb: 30:12

And we, we're at the great Barrington farmer's market uh, the whole season. And we're in at the winter market with Berkshire grown as well this year.

Kim: 30:17

Okay, that's great. We're at the Amherst farmer's market as well, all season long.

Chef James: 30:21

Okay, great, awesome, all right. Well, guys, get out there, take advantage of this amazing farm and, uh, have a great one. Thank you all. Thank you appreciate it. Yeah, all right, everyone, that is a wrap. You can check us out if you like that. Subscribe also the instagram chef massey. Let's keep it simple, chefmasseycom. Have a good one. Bye for now.