i'd been slacking on blog!

alright i know i've been slacking on the blog front :) as this is some of your "light lunchtime reading" (afterall, i am here to please and entertain!) i'll add some of my typical rant of the moment.

HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!!! it wasn't until last year did i identified that we Canadians celebrate our Thanksgiving day on Columbus weekend (i had trouble remembering it every year since the US Thanksgiving is much later). to me it makes sense to celebrate Thanksgiving so early, you have plenty of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, should you want to server turkey and all the delicious side-dishes for both occassions.
one of the frequently asked question is what do we eat for Thanksgiving... well we eat what the Americans would eat! turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, candied yam, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mystery-casseroles, pumkin pie, apple pie... yum. i always thought we celebrate it to give thanks to the good harvest (afterall, it usually coincide with the END of harvest, indian summer, etc) - but i'm sure the pilgrims were part of the story anyway.

what do i know? as a CanadianChinese we have rice at home for Thanksgiving. my mom never made turkey at home, she always found it too dry a meat to make, plus we're a family of 4, it would take us until Christmas to finish a whole turkey. the closest we've ever gotten to having a turkey was when mom cooked a whole chicken for the occassion. but she didn't roast it, she cooked it chinese style, which was to slow-low-heat-marinade-cook it served with chinese veggies over rice. it was delicious, but not your so typical Thanksgiving Turkey.

so i spent the evening at Nathan's place yesterday, who was kind enough to host and cook for Canadian Thanksgiving. he has the super huge Ronco Rotisserie (to this day i am still mesmerized every time the freaking informercial comes on TV). met a bunch of Canadians and we talked about hockey, reminisce about the Corn Pops/Coffee Crisp/Smarties and one of the girls even wanted to sing the national anthem.

i find that being out here AWAY from Canada has increased my patriotism; as i am sure other Canadians not-at-home must feel similar. when u meet someone from Canada, it's like finding a lost friend - even though you may have lived on total opposite sides of the country, and never ever would've gotten along or even met under "normal circumstances" had you both been back in Canada. (it's like travelling abroad, and you're from California and you happen to meet a guy from Utah, and you're instant best friends because being from the US bonds u immediately - so you can both reminisce about the quality of bagels from NY, the rainy Seattle days, and the good old fashion BBQ eateries in Texas?!?!)

Anything CANADIAN , naturally, we have to embrace and root for, sports teams, TV shows, quality of beer. i've never proclaimed "go Canada!" as much as i have in the past 5 years... especially during the Olympic game for hockey a few years back. (we won, i like to attribute that to my energy and karma in rooting for the team, i totally made the difference, to tell you the truth. *I* carried the team, and they say there's no I in TEAM! Pfffff).
it's not that i think Canadians are BETTER than Americans or anything, i think that being in someone else's country makes u embrace your country a little more...

so back to the topic, even though this isn't EVERYONE's holiday, have a HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING; change of weather, it's time to remember how lucky we all are to have what we have, family, friends, health and each other. HUGZ.