Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thanksgiving
Although I'm an American by birth, I'm Canadian by choice, marriage, and luck. Enormous luck.
One of the many benefits of living in Canada is Canadian Thanksgiving. The timing is far more sane than American Thanksgiving--instead of having a long, intense holiday month that begins with turkey and ends in an exhausted heap of discarded holiday wrapping paper, Canadians eat their big birds in October. Everyone gets a chance to breathe, get away from their families (and their family disagreements), and generally calm down before revving up for the next round.
On top of that, mid-October is a lovely and logical time for a harvest festival. It's gorgeous out right now. The leaves are brilliant but still mostly on the trees, it's still warm enough for long, lazy strolls, and all the traditional Thanksgiving food are at the height of harvest.
Down to the facts. Here's what we ate:
Turkey from Maplegrove Farms, stuffed with sage, thyme, parsley, and onions from Rumtopf Farm as well as garlic from the backyard, cooked in a clay pot. (Not terribly attractive, but succulent as all get out)
Stuffing made with bread from La Boulangerie Vendeenne, red peppers and mushrooms from Glad Gardens in the valley, sausage from Kurt Wentzell at Wooly Mountain Farm, and chicken stock from one of Sustenance Gardens organic chickens
Gingered puree of buttercup squash (the 'pumpkins' in our back yard that persistently refused to turn orange or get big, whoops)
Mashed potatoes, Rumtopf Farm
A corn and creme fraiche pudding, corn from Glad Garden (Those guys really need to get a website for me to link to! Guess they're too busy building those interesting log greenhouses of theirs)
Cranberry relish--and I actually made my own this year, with local organic cranberries, of course
A baguette from Vendeenne, and
Mama's secret gravy (hint: the secret is a lot of sherry)
One of the many benefits of living in Canada is Canadian Thanksgiving. The timing is far more sane than American Thanksgiving--instead of having a long, intense holiday month that begins with turkey and ends in an exhausted heap of discarded holiday wrapping paper, Canadians eat their big birds in October. Everyone gets a chance to breathe, get away from their families (and their family disagreements), and generally calm down before revving up for the next round.
On top of that, mid-October is a lovely and logical time for a harvest festival. It's gorgeous out right now. The leaves are brilliant but still mostly on the trees, it's still warm enough for long, lazy strolls, and all the traditional Thanksgiving food are at the height of harvest.
Down to the facts. Here's what we ate:
Turkey from Maplegrove Farms, stuffed with sage, thyme, parsley, and onions from Rumtopf Farm as well as garlic from the backyard, cooked in a clay pot. (Not terribly attractive, but succulent as all get out)
Stuffing made with bread from La Boulangerie Vendeenne, red peppers and mushrooms from Glad Gardens in the valley, sausage from Kurt Wentzell at Wooly Mountain Farm, and chicken stock from one of Sustenance Gardens organic chickens
Gingered puree of buttercup squash (the 'pumpkins' in our back yard that persistently refused to turn orange or get big, whoops)
Mashed potatoes, Rumtopf Farm
A corn and creme fraiche pudding, corn from Glad Garden (Those guys really need to get a website for me to link to! Guess they're too busy building those interesting log greenhouses of theirs)
Cranberry relish--and I actually made my own this year, with local organic cranberries, of course
A baguette from Vendeenne, and
Mama's secret gravy (hint: the secret is a lot of sherry)
Saturday, October 4, 2008
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