Thanksgiving

It’s 11:10 am, Wed., Oct 16, and I’m sitting in the customer waiting room at Kelowna Mazda, waiting for the car to have its check up and tire change in preparation for winter.  I discovered when I returned to Vernon that cars must have winter tires on by Oct. 1 if they are going to go on the Coquihalla Highway or up to any of the ski areas, so I made the first appointment I could because I never know when I might have to drive to Victoria.  I certainly will be there for Christmas; I’ve already reserved accommodation at the best B&B in the city, actually the B&T in Vic. West.  Also, skiing might begin early in Nov.   Since I moved here, the earliest I’ve been cross-country skiing is Nov. 15, less than a month away.

Since I arrived home, we’ve had cool, cloudy weather, a bit of rain and some nights when the temperature has gone down to -1 or -2c, but the Thanksgiving long weekend was terrific, sunny and warm.  I went for 2 good hikes and ate 3 Thanksgiving dinners.  I could have had 4 but 2 of my friends lacked the foresight to coordinate their invitations and invited me for the same day.  Mo and Miriam’s dinners were both wonderful, especially because of their variety of vegetable mixtures.  My own Thanksgiving dinner for the Pollocks was the least well done of the 3.  I should have had more variety of veg. and the grain fed bird was tough.  Albert was kind enough to say that at least you knew you were chewing it, whereas the meat on most chickens and turkeys these days is too soft.  His comment reminded me of the cooking disaster I had had at Jay’s.  When we got back from Beijing, the girls were still away, so we bought 3 small chickens and everything needed to make rice-stuffed, slow cooker chicken.  I’d never tried such a thing, but with my usual unwarranted self-confidence, I roared right in.  The chickens were small, so I stuffed 2 of them with a dressing of raw rice, onion, garlic and thyme and then placed them in May’s big slow cooker with carrots, celery and water.  I let them cook for too many hours, and the result was a tasty mush.   I don’t know what the meat would have been like with less cooking, but by the time I took it out of the slow cooker, it was so soft you could have happily downed it without a tooth in your head.  The bones had some texture left, but even they were so soft you could easily have chewed them with loose dentures.  May, Min Hee and I liked the flavor and were able to eat it, but even we had had enough by the time Jay and May’s friend returned from his trip around Korea to spend a night with us before heading off again.  He’s a tall young man with an appetite like David Glovers’; they can eat mass quantities of almost any leftovers.  I offered the last of the mush to him, and he ate it all up.  May and I were happy to get rid of it so easily because wasting it would have upset us, but not as much as eating more of it would have.

Miriam and Bill posing in their kitchen for a 'Canadian Gothic'  Thanksgiving picture.  He's holding the gardening tool Jim fished out of the Gatineau River, and she's testing the turkey for doneness.  It's appropriate because she's a great cook and he loves gardening.

Me pointing at the fresh snow on the distant mountains just before sitting down for lunch on Bluenose, our Sunday hike.