Originally for this weekend I had a whole afternoon planned for me and my husband that I liked to call “Maple Climbing”. The afternoon of my imagination went something like this:
On Saturday morning (because I am a morning person and my husband is not) I would make rock cakes while he slept.
For lunch we would eat Maple Almond Butter and jelly sandwiches.
By 2pm (when my husband is finally ready to start his day) we would leave for Marathon, NY where we would attend the annual Maple Festival.
Around 4pm we would leave Marathon for Ithaca to arrive on time for Lindseth Climbing Center’s monthly climbing event at 5pm. I would climb for a while and he would climb if his bad knee wasn’t feeling too bad. Once I had strained most of my husband’s patience with all of this climbing, we would head home.
Once home we would have slow cooker maple pulled pork sandwiches and Maple Mead from Black Bear Winery for dinner and watch Cliffhanger on Amazon Prime to end our day on a “high” note. Pun intended.
But most of that just isn’t a reality anymore. The Maple Festival is cancelled. Lindseth Climbing Center is closed. So is Black Bear Winery. And let’s face it, I probably couldn’t convince my husband to spend an hour or two at the climbing gym with me anyway.
So here’s what really happened:
On Saturday for breakfast I had a maple almond butter Clif bar and then I made rock cakes while I drank my coffee. According to Wikipedia rock cakes are a “small fruit cake with a rough surface resembling a rock. They were promoted by the Ministry of Food during the Second World War since they require fewer eggs and less sugar than ordinary cakes, an important savings in a time of strict rationing”. So they are also suitable for self-isolation or quarantine food. I have to note though that the recipe was in British so I had to use Google to translate. You can see my re-written recipe at the bottom of the post.
After rock cakes… I worked. I have a big project due for my job as soon as humanly possible so there’s a lot of work that I will need to do this weekend to get it done on time.
At 2pm I had a Zoom meet up with some family members. By 3pm I was back to work and my husband was finally ready to start his day. Being the wonderful human that he is, he drilled holes in an 8″ tall x 48″ wide wooden board for me and stained the board with some leftover wood stain we had laying around. At this point I was ready for dinner and found him in the basement, woozy from stain fumes. We’ll come back to this project.
I convinced him to take a break and I ordered us takeaway from the Sugar Maple cafe in Owego. This place is owned by some friends of mine and the food is absolutely amazing. I painted the tree mural in the cafe and you should definitely pay them a visit if you have the opportunity when the world goes back to “normal”. In the meantime they have a sweet drive up window.
Once safely home we ate our dinner. We each got a pulled pork sandwich topped with chipotle BBQ sauce, pickled radishes, cucumbers and vinaigrette slaw. For sides we ordered coleslaw, French fries, maple glazed baked beans, and a sweet granny maple pecan salad to share. Yes, this was way more food than we needed. Yes, we have a ton of leftovers. I also bought a box of girl scout cookies from their daughter, because how could I resist drive-thru girl scout cookie purchases?
After dinner we watched Underwater while I continued to work so I guess it would be accurate to say that we ended our day on a low note.
On Sunday I wore this shirt that my awesome friends got me.
I worked for a few hours more until I finished my project, and then I did yardwork with my husband.
I also spray painted some plastic rock climbing holds to look less like kids toys. And this nearly brings us to the end of my 48″ x 8″ wooden board project. Soon I will have 384 square inches of rock climbing wall to hang above the doorway to our living room. And that’s better than 0 square inches.
If you want to do what I did:
1. Here is the rock cake recipe I followed:
1.5 C flour
⅓ C sugar
1 tsp baking powder
¼ C unsalted butter cut into cubes and ¼ C vegetable shortening (use ½ C butter if you have it–I didn’t)
¾ C dried fruit (I used apricots chopped into small bits, you could also use raisins or cranberries or whatever dried fruit you have laying around)
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
– Mix the dry ingredients together (I used a stand mixer)
– Add the cubed butter (and shortening if using) and crumble with your hands until flaky (or use a stand mixer)
– Add the dried fruit and mix (don’t use your stand mixer, just give it a quick mix with a spoon)
– In a small bowl beat egg, milk, and vanilla and add to dry ingredients
– Once everything turns into a dough, drop spoonfuls of it on to a baking sheet (parchment lined if you have parchment paper)
– Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees
2. I’m not sure where my friends got my shirt, but you can buy this one on Amazon.
3. Here is the tutorial I followed to make my rock climbing wall (with significant help from my husband who is much handier with tools than I am).
4. The Sugar Maple cafe is open 9am to 6pm every day but Sunday and they just ask that you place your dinner orders by 5:30pm
UPDATE:
Here is the finished rock climbing board project
