Happy Thanksgiving Jocarra! This day's really not about the uniqueness of the meal, rather, a reflection of all that you have to be thankful for in life. :) As a fan of your work, I'm equally thankful that you choose to share all your amazing stuff with us! ^_^

Cheers <3 Thanks so much :) And yeah, it's much more about, as you said, being thankful for what you have in life, and appreciating time with your loved ones - the actual details of the trappings involved don't matter to the same degree. Was just something we wanted to do for fun together :)

In all honesty, it's partly because Casey just isn't a huge fan of the traditional turkey dinner XD We were looking for a chance to try some new recipes we got from this Celtic Cookbook we picked up a while ago, with lots of oldschool traditional recipes from the area (it seems like half of them call for ale, wine or whiskey XD), but then it just never happened :b On the plus side, though, I enjoy a good turkey dinner (but I suppose that's not saying much - I like pretty much any food if it's done well).

Hmm... well, plenty of ways to eat alternative meals! My mate and I decided a couple years back to stop eating red meat and only eat other meat if we could be 100% certain it was organic and ethically raised/slaughtered. So... we pretty much don't eat meat any more. XD That's mad big holiday meals a bit more interesting, but there is certainly no lack of interesting dishes you can create for something. :) Experimenting is fun too - much of the time, I come up with new ways of making an old favourite, or just something completely different by playing around.

Besides... you two are just getting settled in; you'll have decades of holiday meals together to play around and enjoy yourselves. Or better still - you don't need a holiday as an excuse to pamper each other with cool meals. ;)

Yeah. Casey's not a fan of turkey really, but he LOVES duck, plus its still seasonally appropriate (he loves holidays rooted in tradition), so we were going to try something like that. We'd love to try goose or pheasant, but we're not sure where to get them around here :b It was something that was much more available in the UK.

And yeah, it's not even so much that we want to find the "perfect meal replacement", it's more of the adventure of doing it together, y'know? Adding our own personal touches to a nice tradition, and turning it into something that is "ours". The idea of tradition is important to him (despite being actually quite unconventional), so I'd love to work on developing our own personal traditions a bit more :) Just our lives the past few years with moving and stuff being in storage and whatnot haven't really given us the best opportunity to figure those out XD

Oh, we definitely do lots of food adventures the rest of the year XD <3

What do you guys tend to do for special meals? Just curious :)

Never actually tried duck myself... or pheasant, so not sure how to go about getting those either. Some of the places we've used that deal in the organic meats deal directly with the farms though, so they'll often go and ask the farmer about what you want, and if they can get it, they will. That might be worth trying.

For special meals, we tend to make things that take a little more time, and are a little more elaborate. Well that and make a lot MORE of stuff because we'd be hosting folks. One thing I created is called a Mexicake. :3 It's layered tortilla shells with filling between each, made in a cake pan. Each layer contains a different type of filling so for example - Layer1: Meat (or meat-like replacement), layer2: refried beans, layer3: cheese and veggies, layer4: beans again, layer5: meat again. Each layer can be spiced and prepared however you like - I always custom-make the layers. I baste one side of the tortilla shell with maple syrup which gives it just a hint of sweetness in the otherwise spicy flavour. The top layer is moistened basted with water to keep it somewhat moist when cooking, then you just flip it out of the pan like a cake when done. Cut into cake-like slices and serve with salsa and sour-cream to top it with. Of course, we also make veggies, sides, corn-bread or yorkshire pudding or fresh-baked buns; whatever goes with the whole of what we're creating. Cooking is fun. ^_^ Though... with my mate and I, it's more a "me" thing than an "us" thing. She hates cooking. XD

Ahahaha, we're sort of the same way :) I like cooking, and he SOMETIMES likes cooking, but it's mostly a me thing :b

Mexicake sounds awesome :D Reminds me of our homemade Taco Bell crunch wraps XD We came up with them in the UK when we were craving crappy North American fast food, and they're pretty much better than anything you could get at Taco Bell :b Fed them to friends, and it's basically agreed some sort of magical food alchemy during the process of assembling said crunch wrap infuses them with crack or something :b XD

Duck is to chicken like lamb is to beef, if that helps? It's a fattier meat with a richer flavour - people who don't like lamb/duck tend to blame its "greasiness" or saying it's chewier than beef/chicken, but I think it's just that it's a bit harder to make good lamb/duck than beef/chicken.

As for pheasant? No clue - I've had quail once or twice, and duck a number of times, but never pheasant or goose or other game fowl.

Ahhh... so kinda like what Bison is to Beef. Gotcha. Yeah, stuff like the Mexicake is fun and actally quite good for you compared to that fast-food crap. I don't eat fast food. Ever. <_< Heh, with my mate and I - she's really good at stuff like stews and soups from scratch, but overall she doesn't enjoy the process of making anything. Me... I'm kinda like "This is COOKING SCIENCE!" :D So I love cooking and baking.

lol, we do eat fast food crap >_>. Everything has its time and place - sometimes you want crappy American processed plastic-cheese, and other times you want triple creme brie with candied walnuts :V

It's funny, a lot of fast-food entries are actually pretty amazing if you take the time to do them at home, but it isn't really surprising if you think of things like burgers, which can range from everything from craptacular soggy McDonalds cheeseburgers with hardly anything in them to amazing whiskey BBQ burgers with blue cheese and onion straws - why I'm actually pretty open to most foods. It's really about how you do it, and what you're aiming for :)

*nodsnods* Yeah, make most fast-food type things with real ingredients and at home, and they're always WAY better. We avoid eating any processed foods whenever possible - try to stay with organics or at least stuff as close to natural as possible. And ooooohhh yes, the variety in foods is astonishing from place to place. I always find your own to be the best though. When I used to eat red meats, I had (well... still have) a smoker, and I would do huge burger paddies up on it over the course of about four to five hours of smoking them, basting them and just babying them along. Oh man... so juicy and perfect - 10x the flavour of anything you'd get in a restaurant.

Man, our friends and I were talking about getting a smoker together, and how awesome it would be >_> Jealous!

DOH! I would totally give you mine since I'm not getting much use out of it anymore! About the only thing I do now is smoke cheese in the winter, if I can get to it in the snow. The cold of winter is the only time I can do it without the cheese melting. ^_^

Mmmm...

Yesssss. :9 It's remarkable too how little smoked cheese you need to flavour something. Plus, the cool thing is that once smoked, the cheese won't go bad for months. :D

We actually have a ton of cheese left over from the wedding - because we got whole wheels of cheese, they're actually all still good. Will probably take a little more time to get through them still >_>

DOH... Dammit... too bad you guys didn't live a wee bit closer to London. Or... even this half the country. XD

XD I lived in Scotland for a year, and visited London once :V I, uh, didn't really like it there >_> PEEEEEEEOPLLLLE

Noooooo.... London, ON. :P Less PEEEEEEOPLLLLE.

OHHHH That's so much better :b

*laughs!* Sorry. ^^; I wonder if you can like... mail that kinda stuff without Canada Post thinking it's a delightfully scented bomb?

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! :D Question: Do Christmas ads overtake everything in creation the day after Thanksgiving in Canada too, or is that strictly a 'Murican tradition? Because I really don't think I could take an entire extra month of Christmas per year. :X

Murry Christmas Lion!

Cheers!

Uh, I haven't had access to television in quite a while so I can't attest to that, but it's not surprising to start to see the beginnings of Christmas decorations being sold in stores as early as August x_x - it's not uncommon to see in October just as much Christmas stuff for sale as Halloween! It doesn't really start to get pushed until November, though. That's when stores start decking themselves up in snowy winter trappings with sparkly reindeer and plush Santas everywhere, that sort of thing.

To be honest, I actually really like a lot of things about the Christmas season/, and it always makes me simultaneously happy and sad seeing it pushed so hard commercially - I get personally excited, I love a lot of the seasonal trappings and atmosphere, but it's undeniably obnoxiously aggressive, and ruins it for a lot of people. You know, those people who might actually LIKE the winter holiday season if it weren't shoved in their face with a desperate scream of "LOVE ME!"

Happy Thanksgiving to ya from yer noisy neighbor just across the border in Detroit.

Hope ya get to feelin better, btw your turduckin looks great, thx for sharing.
If ya get a chance to actually try one, go for it, the one I tried was actually pretty yummy.

Cheers

Hehe, cheers :)

Yeah, we heard you can get them from Costco, and while we were sort of tempted to do it at the very least for novelty's sake, I'm not sure if we'll actually ever go through with it XD Depends on how inspired vs lazy we are, I guess XD I have no doubt they can be delicious, though!

well i hope your thanksgiving started out in a better way then ours actually did.
sounds like basically a summer's end feast.
always a good thing that.

Ah, went a bit rough? Family drama, or just an unfortunate series of events? Or both, which seems so much more likely to happen whenever major events or gatherings come around :b

Yeah, a summer's end/harvest feast type meal :) Fruits and squashes and root veg and spices and birds :3~

Enjoy your Canadian Thanksgiving, Jocarra - holidays are a limited resource around here, so you best make good use of yours, hah.

At the very least, we have a ton of leftovers now :b

That is always a boon; the "free" food left over... that you spent a lot of time cooking before. Oh well, at least it is good food.

Haha, I'm used to spending a lot of time cooking, though. Being rather OCD, I'm not exactly the most efficient chef :b

In Germany its called Oktoberfest! :3
Just kidding, happy thanksgiving! ^_^

Haha, actually, we'd love to have an Oktoberfest dinner instead of a Thanksgiving one! At least sometimes, anyway.

Thank YOU for all the art you've shared with us (or drawn for us ) over the years. Hope your turducken was, uh, edible?

<333

Ahaha, okay, I drew the Turducken. That is all. (Although I could get one from Costco if I really wanted to try one :b)

They actually sell such a thing ready-made?

And yeah, saw the turducken you drew AFTER your journal post. That makes a lot more sense in hindsight

Haha, I'd imagine.

Yuuuuup: http://www.costco.ca/CatalogSearch?.....word=turducken

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Also, Turduckens are awesome.

Hehe, thanks a lot :3

My pleasure. BUt....that turducken you drew was horrifying.

Ahahaha, aww, thanks <3