The Key Ingredient

by Susan Wiggs

  As for me, I was determined to wait, not for marriage because that was too far away, but for the right guy. Gran told me—­more than once, because I guess she wanted to make sure I heard—­that after you give yourself to somebody in that way, you can’t get it back. So you’d better make sure you pick the right somebody.

  My mom warned me to stay away from Fletcher Wyndham. “He and his father showed up out of nowhere,” she said. “We don’t know anything about him. Where’s his mother? We don’t know who his ­people are.”

  When your name was Rush and you grew up in Switchback, it was pretty obvious who your ­“people” were. The first gallon of Sugar Rush Maple Syrup was produced in the 1800s by Elijah Rush, who claimed and named our mountain, high above the small village of Switchback.

  There’s a daguerreotype portrait of old Elijah over the fireplace mantel—­a somber man with a mustache and muttonchop whiskers, broad shoulders and a piercing stare. When I was little, I used to imagine what his voice sounded like and what books he liked to read. Did he have kitchen dance parties with his daughter, the way Dad used to do with me? Did he draw funny pictures like Mom did, to keep me amused? Did he play “Bill Grogan’s Goat” on the old upright piano in the family room?

  There’s a family rumor about old Elijah that’s most likely more than rumor. He was married for ten years, yet he and his wife never had a baby, not one. Then, all of a sudden, twin babies came along—­a boy and a girl. The rumor stems from the fact that the appearance of the kids coincided with Elijah’s role in helping runaway slaves from the South.

  Rush Mountain was a known “station” on the Underground Railroad, which wasn’t a railroad at all, but an escape route. Lots of Vermonters, whether they were Quaker or not, were dedicated to freeing the slaves. Apparently, Elijah was dedicated to something more, because the babies were mixed race, judging by the only surviving photograph we have of them. Elijah’s wife, Clarissa, must have been a good sport about it, because she raised those babies as her own. I do wonder, even now, about their biological mother. Did she surrender the babies and keep running to Canada? Did she ever get to see them again?

  I think the woman’s name was Jubetta Johnson. My grandpa pointed out a cryptic note in the fat family Bible we keep in a glass barrister case. On a certain page, in old-­fashioned spidery penmanship, someone wrote, Jubetta Johnson, arrived from parts unknown, and thence departed, 1861. And that’s the year the twins were born.

  The house on Rush Mountain still has its secret staircase, located behind a movable bookcase in my childhood bedroom. During the Underground Railroad years, it was used to access the root cellar, which in turn led to a tunnel that let out near a creek. According to the Switchback Historical Society, dozens of escaping slaves followed that creek into Canada . . . and freedom.

  Having a secret staircase in the bedroom is enough to fire any kid’s imagination. The bookcase pushed against the wall has a hidden hinge, and if you trip the latch and move it just so, it pulls back just enough to slip behind with a flashlight. I didn’t mind the dank, fecund smell or even the spiders running for cover, because it was the perfect hiding place. As a girl, I had an imaginary friend named Glory—­an escaping slave in a homespun pinafore and high-­button boots. She and her parents ran away from a cruel master in the Deep South to find freedom in Canada, but Glory stayed with me for quite a while. She told me about the red clay soil and palmetto trees, the okra and hominy cakes and red peas in a dish called Hoppin’ John, and black-­eyed peas topped with spicy chow chow. Like me, Glory was overly preoccupied with food, and we perused library books about regional cuisine together. There was a time—­right around my parents’ divorce, I believe—­when Glory was as real to me as my other best friend, a dog named Rocket.

  Glory left me a ­couple of years after my father left the family. She was like a beloved doll I didn’t play with but didn’t want to throw away. I got used to the house without Dad. Gran and I made more cooking videos, tended the garden, picked apples, made maple syrup.

  As the production crew drives up the last stretch of the winding road, I tell Martin and Melissa about the family history. Elijah’s son, Jacob Rush, took over the sugarbush, and every generation since that time has carried on the tradition of cultivating the maples and rendering the sap into syrup. The farmhouse has been modernized and expanded over the years, but it’s still essentially the home Elijah built when he first came to Rush Mountain—­two stories, a chimney at either end, and a big carriage house and stables, which later became the garage and equipment barn.

  The heart of the home is the kitchen—­the family’s central gathering place. Likewise, the bedrooms are numerous and large, probably because as a young man, Elijah expected to have a lot of kids. In the next generation, Jacob fulfilled that wish, taking a bride named Philomena, who had nine children. The shingled roof has gables facing in multiple directions for a view of the entire mountain—­the trout pond that freezes for skating in the winter, the orchards and gardens, and of course the maple groves that have sustained my family for generations.

  As we park in the driveway of the farmhouse where I grew up, a thousand memories flow through me.

  Home. Breath and memory.

  Standing here in the place where I was born brings everything back, the good and the bad, the constant and lasting reminders of how fragile life can be, how easily shattered when we least expect it. The little things we take for granted are suddenly the biggest things in the universe—­remembering how beloved and precious the ­people in our lives are, so that when we do have to say goodbye to the joy and love, we do so knowing we did everything we could.

  The air feels different on my skin. The smells—­they’re different, too.

  And that’s when I know for sure that a part of me has never truly left. I realize something else: Home is a place after all. A place I recognize, a part of my blood and bone. Finally, after a long journey that took me away and brought me back, I’ve come at last to the place where I belong. The only trouble is, I’m going to have to leave again, heading back to the life that’s waiting for me somewhere else.

  There’s a wrap-­around porch where Gran and I used to sit in the summertime, husking corn, shelling peas and beans, trimming vegetables or fruit. Some of my best dreams were born there, on that porch, with the sun slanting over us and the dogs flopped down at our feet, basking in the late-­afternoon warmth.

  On the wall behind the porch swing is an old world map, fading and tattered. I hung it there so I could show Gran the places I wanted to go—­France and Thailand and Greece and the Cook Islands. I wanted to go everywhere in the world, not just to study art history or look at ancient ruins, but to find out how ­people live, particularly the foods they eat. It’s been an obsession of mine all my life. Gran never yearned to travel. I suppose it was because she was absolutely content with her life as it unfolded day by day, following the rhythm of the seasons and staying close to the ­people she loved.

  It was Gran who would talk me down after a fight with my mom. You’d think, with this idyllic family farm, we would never have a day of trouble. You’d think. But a sugarbush family is like any other, vulnerable to the vagaries of our dreams and aspirations, our rivalries and jealousies, our disappointments and frustrations.

  Now my mom comes out to greet us and shoos us toward the porch. We make our way through a gauntlet of pelting pinpricks of half-­freezing rain. “Heavenly days,” she says, sounding breathless, “you made it!” She folds me into a brief, fierce hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Same here, Mom.” Everything about the day feels a bit warmer after that hug. I step back and make the introductions.

  “I promised Annie I wouldn’t swoon over you,” Mom says to Martin, “but I might have to break that rule.”

  “I’m okay with swooning,” Martin assures her, brushing aside the handshake and bringing her in for a hug. “Thank you for havin
g us.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” she says. By now, everyone is inside, wet boots and coats lining the mudroom. “I’ve got plenty of coffee all ready to go.”

  My mother is a painter. It’s her lifelong passion. She works in a studio Dad built for her up over the garage. The room is filled with light, and she spends hours there, creating breathtaking landscapes with roiling skies and sweeping vistas. She also does intimate portraits and still lifes. When she paints, she disappears somewhere. You can be standing next to her, but she’s deep in the world of her painting and scarcely notices what’s right in front of her.

  Perhaps one reason she and I used to get into arguments is that we have a lot in common. Like me, she wanted to travel the world, go to college, create a vibrant career around the things she loves to do.

  Unlike me, my mother never pursued those old dreams of hers. Because something more important came up—­family.

  It’s amazing how quickly and thoroughly your priorities shift when there’s an unplanned pregnancy and a hurry-­up marriage. You set everything aside to make room for the tiny new stranger coming into your life—­uninvited, but desperately wanted and devotedly loved.

  My brother, Kyle, came along, and my folks settled at the farm. Mom set aside her dream. Dad kept dreaming, but he hunkered down and tried to make it work. Eight years later, I was born. Considering what happened to my parents’ marriage, I was probably their last-­ditch effort to stay together. And they did, for a good while. Ten years. That’s how old I was when Dad left.

  Gran had a different idea about making dreams come true. She did it right there at home, late at night when the rest of the family slept. She was wide awake while everyone else was dreaming. As a young wife and mother who loved being in the kitchen, she discovered a talent for creative cookery. And so, with no formal training and nothing but a high school education, she wrote a cookbook. She had already edited the charity cookbook for the Switchback Congregational Church, meaning she pretty much had to write or rewrite all the donated recipes. After that, she figured she had enough experience to write a cookbook of her own from recipes she’d developed over the years.

  I take a copy of the book from the shelf, hand it to Martin and tell him the story behind it. “Gran didn’t rest until she found a publisher. Not just any publisher, but a major house in Boston that specializes in illustrated cookbooks. It became a regional bestseller and stayed in print for more than a decade.”

  “She must have been incredible,” Martin said. “Now I see where your inspiration comes from.”

  I smile, warmed by the comment. “When I was a kid, I set a goal to make every recipe in the book, and I met that goal by the time I was a junior in high school. I’ve done some of the recipes so many times that I’ve memorized them.”

  I flip through the book, able to recall the occasion that went along with each recipe. Gran’s maple-­glazed pumpkin-­spice cookies are a perfect example of a bake-­sale item. They’re also the perfect cookie, if you ask me—­spicy, soft and comforting with a glass of milk or a cup of tea. The recipe makes about three dozen cookies, which will disappear at a startling rate.

  To make them (and I recommend that you do, because they are delicious in the extreme), you need a half cup of unsalted butter, softened by putting the stick in your apron pocket while you get out the mixer, the baking sheets and the rest of the ingredients. Combine the butter with a half cup of vegetable oil, a half cup of canned pumpkin, three-­quarter cup of white sugar, three-­quarter cup of brown sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla.

  Beat in two eggs, fresh ones from your own henhouse, if possible. Then, with the mixer turning on low, add the dry ingredients—­four cups of flour, one-­fourth teaspoon baking soda, one-­fourth teaspoon cream of tartar, a half teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pumpkin-­pie spice.

  Scoop onto parchment-­lined baking sheets and flatten the scoops with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about nine minutes. As soon as the edges start to brown, they’re ready.

  Make the glaze by combining three cups of powdered sugar with a half teaspoon of pumpkin-­pie spice and about four tablespoons of maple syrup—­just enough to create a thick consistency. Drizzle the icing over the warm cookies. Try not to eat them all while you wait for the glaze to set.

  I’ve never been good at waiting. Things take as long as they take. Gran used to tell me that at Thanksgiving, when it seemed as if the turkey would never be done.

  We all crowd into the big farmhouse. It’s warm inside, and the caterers hired for the shoot are putting out a spread of morning-­glory muffins and trays of fruit. The camera crew starts setting up. For me, this is where the real picture comes into focus. I step inside the frame, relaxed and self-­assured, knowing it’s where I belong.

  I’m standing in the center of the big country kitchen, organizing the set-­up. There’s a riverstone fireplace and a large painting on the wall, a landscape my mother did of Rush Mountain at the height of Vermont’s autumn glory. There’s no glory here now. Gray-­toned winter light leaks in through the alcove windows that surround the scrubbed wooden dining table.

  The table is hand-­made of taphole maple by my grandfather. Back when he honed the planks smooth in his woodworking shop, he assumed he was merely being thrifty by finding a new use for the tapped-­out maple trees of our sugarbush. A tapped-­out tree no longer yields a sap run in the late-­winter thaw. It has to be cut down and used for firewood or milled for lumber. Nowadays, taphole maple, with its patterns created by the spikes drilled into the wood, is not a matter of thrift. The distinctively patterned wood is highly prized by custom builders and marketed as a rare luxury item.

  In the Vermont sugarbush area, it’s not rare at all, although most ­people wouldn’t know that.

  I’ve always loved that table, not just the look of it, but its flaws as well. The scratches and divots it’s sustained through the years are a road map of its life with my family. The dark and light ripples of maplewood have been a silent witness to our family’s joys and celebrations, moments of soaring triumph, and sometimes trouble and tragedy. Its surface has been marred by spilled candle wax from countless birthdays, hot pans set down too soon, ink from an old-­fashioned pen, broken pottery, an angry fist slamming down, a pattern scratched with a butter knife by a bored child.

  While seated around the table, we’ve dealt with all of life. Straight-­A report cards. Money troubles. Getting a varsity letter on the Switchback Wildcats swim team. A college scholarship. Laughter over everyday happenings—­a new puppy, a failed cake recipe, a goofy joke perfectly delivered by my brother, Kyle, funny photos just back from being developed at the drugstore. Tears were shed at that table as well—­Your father and I are getting a divorce. The dog died. Gramps had an accident.

  Yet even through the worst of times, there was a sense of belonging. A safety net to catch me no matter how hard I fell.

  My spot at the table was by the heating vent, next to Gran. In the 1950s, she moved up to Rush Mountain as a young bride from Boston, and she was always cold. I could feel the warm air wafting from the furnace, swinging my feet while I dawdled over homework or daydreamed while looking out the window at the snow-­covered hills.

  On baking days, we would spread out the flour-­dusted rolling cloth and then we’d get to work creating pale circles of dough for pies or cookies. The scent of butter and sugar filled the air, luring Dad and Kyle and Gramps in from their chores, and Mom down from her painting studio above the garage. I always loved the way food—­and Gran’s cooking in particular—­brought ­people together. Through my eyes as a child, it was a kind of magic. When I open the pantry door for the film crew, I can still smell the yeasty aroma of Gran’s baking bread. Like the scars on the table, some things never fade away.

  We film some footage in the house. Mom is fluttery, her voice high-­pitched with nerves, but I hope the shots of the old-­fashioned ki
tchen and rows of tin maple-­ syrup jugs will be usable. Afterward, we all head out to the sugarbush.

  Her bewitching way with food and friends was at its most powerful during the sugar season. That’s when we collect the sap from the maples and boil it until it turns to maple syrup.

  Timing and weather rule our world during those dark weeks at the tail end of winter. When the temperature thaws during the daylight hours and freezes at night, that’s when the sap runs like a faucet. It has to be collected at the peak of freshness and then boiled right away in the evaporator pans over in the sugarhouse. Forty gallons of sap, boiled to a temperature of 219 degrees Fahrenheit, yield a single gallon of syrup. But the moment you taste a drop of Sugar Rush on your tongue, you know it’s worth all the trouble. The work is exciting, miserable, muddy, gratifying and everything in between. On days when the sky spits some nasty combination of rain and snow down on the sugarbush, it’s the hardest labor imaginable. Slogging through the woods across frozen ground or sucking mud in temperatures that make you forget you have fingertips or toes.

  Gran knew how to keep everyone happy during the sugaring-­off. Her baking skills were legendary in Switchback. When word got out that she’d made a batch of fried doughboys or maple scones and was serving them warm in the sugarhouse, everyone came for a taste. Her baking created a party atmosphere. Workers and neighbors would stand around the huge stainless-­steel evaporator pans. The wood-­fired heat under the pans kept us all warm while we sampled her wonderful cookies and breads with hot cinnamon tea or coffee with cream. For the little ones, Gran would step outside the sugarhouse and drizzle boiling syrup over the snow. It would harden instantly into amber webs of sweetness.