Giving Thanks

This past weekend was Thanksgiving and, here on the west coast, Daniel and I spent the holiday (my favourite holiday) enjoying time spent with family and friends, basking in the warm sunshine, braving the cold, autumn breezes, and cooking and savouring lots (and lots) of food.  This year marked our first time “hosting” Thanksgiving dinner (at Daniel’s mother’s house) and I am happy to announce that dinner was a brilliant success (if I do say so myself).  Preparations began on Friday when we headed up the peninsula to get the freshest of fresh ingredients from our local farmers.  Our shopping cart looked something like this:

I am thankful for local, independent farmers.

We spent Sunday exploring the island, enjoying the scenery and wishing we had mittens to shield our hands from the cold!  Living in the coastal forest region of Canada, we don’t see a lot of autumnal foliage.  But, I did manage to find this lovely, little, red and orange leafed tree, buffeted by the northeast wind.

I am thankful for my husband’s toque and my mother-in-law’s jacket.

We walked the beach, we lazed at the top of a mountain and we drank in the stunning beauty of our surroundings.

I am thankful for the amazing part of the country in which I live.

Later that day, Daniel and I got to work cooking up our first gluten-free Thanksgiving feast (since we were only feeding five, we opted to pass on turkey and make pork loin and ribs on the barbecue rotisserie instead).  Absolutely everything on the menu was made from scratch, with the utmost love, and almost all of our ingredients were local.  We ate apple/pumpkin soup.  We ate cornbread stuffing, roasted sunspot squash, purple mashed potatoes with chives, applesauce, rotisserie pork and roasted Brussels sprouts.  Then, after all that, we ate pumpkin pie (made from freshly roasted and pureed Rouge Vif d’Etampes pumpkin) with vanilla whipped cream.  And we were thankful.

I am thankful for the bounty of our earth and for healthy, home-cooked meals shared with friends.

My blood sugar cooperated all weekend and, even after consuming 95g of Thanksgiving carbage (about 40% more carbs than I’d usually consume at dinner), my two hour post-meal blood glucose clocked in at  9.9mmol/L.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

I am thankful for good blood sugar control and for hard work paying off.