A Story and a Sweet Treat Perfect for a “Cold Snap”
"Cold Snap” by Eileen Spinelli is a delightful story that is clearly set somewhere south of Iowa. As the days got colder and colder, the townsfolk were in shivering shock over how low the temperature was dipping. Then, just when they thought it could not get any lower, the thermometer finally hit, what was for them, an unbelievable rock-bottom low--zero degrees fahrenheit!
Zero degrees is cold, no doubt about it. But to us, it is not a shocking, horrifying kind of cold. The day we brought Soren home from the hospital in January of 2014 the windchill was -45 F. That was a cold worthy of taking note of which we did; we took a screenshot of the accuweather report to put in his baby book while we waited for a nice hospital worker to jump start our car.
So we had a good, incredulous laugh when the climatic cold temp was revealed, but we quickly got over it when the school teacher taught the kids how to make Sugar-on-Snow Candy. We thought, Hey, we should try that! It became that much easier to do so when we discovered directions at the end of the book. It was a fun and tasty activity to try in the midst of our own Iowa “cold snap,” where the temperatures, in case you were wondering, have been consistently well below zero.
Sugar-on-Snow Candy:
Heat pure maple syrup in a saucepan to 250 degrees F.
Scoop some good, clean snow into a bowl.
Drizzle the hot syrup on the snow. It will instantly harden into sweet maple candy.
Eat it!
