Canadian Thanksgiving

Canadians do Thanksgiving differently to Americans. To start with, it's earlier - the second Monday in October (although most people eat Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday). Leaves are turning and the harvest is coming in. It's the weekend to close up the cottage, clean out the garage, tune up the snow blower and put away the lawn mower.

Turkey is the traditional dinner centerpiece, but there's not the same focus on gluttony that there is here in the U.S. In fact, I can't remember a traditional Thanksgiving dessert. I asked my mum and she couldn't remember what we used to eat for dessert either. (She had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house where they ate apple crisp from apples the family had picked that day at a local orchard. That sounds like a good tradition.)

Larry and I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in Los Angeles yesterday with a day in the garden and then dinner eaten outdoors under the stars. This year we ate barley and squash cooked in the slow cooker, with sides of lacinato kale and baked acorn squash.

The barley dish was a new one - and I won't be making it again. It was bland - probably because I have run out of my excellent roasted vegetable stock so the liquid was plain water. But honestly, I'm not sure even vegetable stock could have saved it.

Fortunately, I served it with Tomato Chili Pickle, a relish I made in August when we had extra tomatoes. (More on that another day.) That made it delicious.

On the side were cooked kale and baked acorn squash. It was a pretty autumnal meal.

And fortunately we didn't have room for dessert. Because I hadn't made one.