Thanksgiving Ephiphany

After 30 years of living on this planet, I think I finally get Thanksgiving. Not the part of being thankful... sure, that makes logical sense. But the timing and the big meal part. This little gem of insight was all thanks to my balcony garden.

There was a Risk Of Frost warning on the radio earlier this week. So I dutifully harvested all of my vegetables that night. If I didn't, there was the chance that the frost would kill the plants and I would have nothing to eat.

So I now I'm looking at a table full of freshly harvested vegetables, wondering how I'm going to eat all of it before it goes bad. Hmm, maybe I should prepare a big meal of some sort. Maybe invite lots of people, like a feast.

A-ha. The Thanksgiving feast. It's all about frost. Historically, Thanksgiving dinner was the freshest meal one would eat until the following spring. And because frost hits Canada before America, Canadians have Thanksgiving several weeks before Americans.

Let me savour this moment of ingenuity before you tell me you already knew that.

Squirrelling Away Squash

The cold weather is upon us. Sadly, that means goodbye to our warm weather friends, like tomatoes, peppers and zucchinis. But hey, squash is in season. My favourite cool weather vegetable. Even saying his name, Squash, is kind of fun.

I rented a car for the weekend for a short Thanksgiving trip up north, which presented the perfect opportunity to load-up on those heavy gourds at the market. Three butternuts, two acorns and one something-or-other. I brought them home and cut them into cubes, to store in the freezer for the winter months.

I soon found out that peeling 6 squash (or squashes?) at one time
can be sweaty work. The acorn and something-or-other squash was particularly hard to cut, and required holding a super-sharp knife at strange and uncomfortable angles. Grotesque images of accidentally slicing off all 4 tips of my fingers popped into my head; no doubt instigated by a recent visit to the emergency room after I sliced off the tip of my thumb cutting kohlrabi.

In the end, I had 2 fat freezer bags full of cubed squash, and retained all fingers and thumbs intact. A lot of work for a Saturday morning, but I know it'll be worth it when it's minus 1000 degrees outside and I'm curled up on the couch with a steaming hot cup of squash soup.