Maple Weekend and Earl's

"Food for the body, music for the soul" Earl's Motto

Saturday marked the opening of our Statewide Maple Weekend. So we made or annual journey to some of our WNY Sugar Shacks for a good time and on a quest for our yearly gallon of Grade B syrup, the best on the planet.

We hit Randall's in Alexander, which was fun, and Kirsch's in Varysburg where we scored that gallon of Grade B as well as discovering that they raise Natural Black Angus Beef. We need more producers that do that kind of thing around here. That's a photo of the Sugar Shack with a couple of the giant windmills that dot the landscape along Rte. 77.

The bad news about this part of the trip is that we had so little snow and warmed up so quickly that the trees are budding, which ends the season. Syrup, at least in WNY will be in short supply.

Afterwords we we went to Earl's, a WNY landmark for 54 years. It is known for "pies and fries", drinks served in real handleless mason jars and Country Music. The last is why I have only been there twice.

But, we had promised the kids, and let them down three times before. Once we arrived to find they only took cash, and we had none (they now have an ATM). Once I was ill. The last was when we forgot that restaurants in the southtowns close on Monday?

The burger was ok, and filling (so filling that we skipped dinner), but the fries I used to like were undercooked and cold.

If you want to know what Earl's is like, it's on TVFN at 10 tonight. I know 'cause Earl told every party that came in. Every party!

"Do you'all watch Food TV." We heard it so much that Trish was dissolved in laughter!