Immobility

It's summer.  Since I live in southeastern Virginia, that means it's about 5,000 degrees with 100% humidity all day, every day for the next few months.  As a result of this and my apartment not having any central air conditioning, I'm a little bit reluctant to spend any more time in my un-air-conditioned kitchen than is absolutely necessary.  So, less baking, more reviewing things that happen to catch my attention!

One such attention-catching thing is Brian Evenson's book, Immobility.  It's a post-apocalyptic novel set in an unspecified time in the future.  Josef Horkai is woken up from cryogenic storage to find that he's paralyzed from the waist down and has no memory of his past.  The one who revives him tells him that he's needed to go on a mission to retrieve something that was stolen and he's sent out into the wasteland with two "mules" (two identical men in hazard suits) to carry him to where the object is and back again.  During this mission, Horkai struggles to make sense of his situation and understand just who he is and who he can trust.

I really liked this book.  Post-apocalyptic stories usually strike me as interesting and I was not disappointed with this novel.  It's a quick read (253 pages) and is tightly focused.  The novel lacks a lot of world-building details, such as just how the world ended up an irradiated wasteland, among other things, but those details aren't really important to the story, which is focused on Horkai's inner struggles.  And like many books with this kind of setting, it wasn't exactly a cheerful read (though I was no where near as depressed as I was when I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy).  So, if you like these kinds of stories I definitely recommend giving this book a read!

Maple!

Do you ever find yourself in possession of too much maple syrup?

Ah, no.  That doesn't count as "too much".

You just can't possibly make any more pancakes, french toast, or waffles?

Getting closer, but still not there.

It's not like it's going to go bad, but you feel like you really ought to do something with it?

Theeeere we go.  What "too much" officially looks like.

Never fear!  I'm here to help!  Perhaps the simplest thing you can do with your overabundance of maple syrup is to turn it into maple cream.  All you need to do is boil it.  I also recommend you get yourself a candy thermometer. 

Start out by pouring a couple cups of syrup into a big pot.  Don't fill your pot more than halfway.  I really can't stress that enough.  You'll see why in a bit.

Even this was pushing it.

Turn your heat onto medium-low heat and let it do its thing.  But keep your eye on it!

Oh don't mind me; I'm just innocently bubbling away!

Eventually, it'll really get going.  This is fine, just keep your eye on it!

Bubblebubblebubblebubblebubblebubblebubble...

Turn your back for even an instant, though, and you'll regret it!

BBBBUUUUBBBBBBLLLLLEEEE!!!

If you can, try to avoid having your pot look like this last picture.  Try to get the syrup to 235 degrees and then turn off the heat.  If you end up getting the syrup too hot, it'll still be ok, and I'll go into that in a bit.

Leave your super duper hot syrup alone until the temperature cools down a bit.  It doesn't really matter just how much, just enough so that you aren't worried about burning yourself horribly when we start this next fun part: stirring the bejeebus out of it.

I'm sure this isn't going to get incredibly old incredibly fast.

See how it's about the same color as when it went into the pot, only opaque?  Well, keep on stirring and eventually it'll get lighter.

Still not done, though.

If you're like me, you'll decide pretty soon you've had enough of this "stirring by hand" crap and break out the beaters.  Go ahead!  It works like a charm!

Hurray for modern technology!

And...that's it, really.  Once it's all nice and light in color and thickened, you're done.  Just pour it into some kind of container(s), and you're finished! 

I said earlier that if you ended up boiling it to a higher temperature than 235 degrees, that it would still be ok.  That's true, except now instead of maple cream, you'll have maple candy.  The only real difference is that the maple cream is spreadable and the maple candy is definitely not.  Either way, now you've got yourself some delicious concentrated sugar!  Enjoy!