Canadian Thanksgiving

Today's beautiful pictures are from Marlen Boro, a photographer who specializes in "male boudoir " photography.  More on him in another post. 

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with my oldest and youngest kids, our first in my new home in its specacular waterfront setting.   There were no other human guests but we were joined by four dogs with a wide range of sizes, ages, temperments and abilities to get along with each other. 

Each of us has our own dog and we were also dog-sitting my soon-to-be-ex wife's dog for a total of four.   My wife is spending Thanksgiving with relatives far away and our middle daughter is joining her there.

For dinner:
Roasted free-range chickens, raised by my new gay friends.
     -one stuffed with bread cubes, onions and fresh thyme, parsley, sage and rosemary
     -one stuffed with wild rice, brown rice and mushrooms
 Squash baked with butter and maple syrup  (so Canadian!)
 Home-made bread, straight from the oven
 Mashed potatoes & gravy ... home-made from scratch.  No rubbish!

For dessert, three banana cream pies:
    -an old family favourite with home-made pastry cream, whipping cream and vanilla
    -a newly-invented banana-chocolate variation
    -an insanely delicious variation made with bananas carmelized in brown sugar and butter... *

* I followed this recipe except used plain gelatine and four whole rather than eight egg yolks in the pastry cream.

On Monday, we're going to my parents' family Thanksgiving dinner.  This is always a treat because the food is fantastic; Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings combined with traditional foods from our ethnic group.  Best of all, I don't have to cook!

I also enjoying helping myself to my father's liquor cabinet.   But this has to be done "in secret" because he offers a drink (one!) only once each year, at Christmas.  My parents would worry that I was becoming a closet alcoholic if they knew I drank alcohol at Thanksgiving!   In mid-afternoon, yet!

I have so much to be thankful for but the list is too long to just tack onto the end of this post.  My family has come such a long way since my Thanksgiving 2011 post, especially me!  I will do a "things I am thankful for" post in two days.