Richard and I spent Thanksgiving weekend at his sister's place in the Muskokas and drove through Algonquin Park to get there. 
The drive was amazing because the fall colours were at their peak.
We pulled over a few times...
...those leaves were so colourful.
Looks almost like a painting, doesn't it?
We got to the Muskokas and took a short walk through the woods.
And a walk down to the dock...
...to take more photos.
Every vista proved to be artful...
...even when you looked straight down!
Richard and I are heading to his sister's place for Thanksgiving and we're bringing the desserts. I made this apple-spice cake with maple buttercream frosting. I found the icing quite sweet so I topped the cake with a dark chocolate (85%) ganache and decorated it with toasted pecans.
I found these vintage pale blue 4.25" tiles at a salvage place in Ithaca, New York a few weeks back...
...and I knew almost immediately that I wanted to paint various birds eggs on them.
I found this recipe in last week's Ottawa Citizen's food section. Since I still have a half row of carrots in my garden...
...and my basil patch is on the verge of being nipped by frost, I figured I'd make this carrot soup with pistou. Pistou is like pesto but doesn't have any pine nuts in it.
Place 2 tablepoons oil in a large pot and over medium heat, sauté carrots and onions for 5 minutes. Mix in the flour and cook 2 more minutes.
Stir in stock and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the carrots are very tender.
While the soup is cooking, make the pistou by placing basil, garlic and cheese in a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped. Pour in oil and pulse until well incorporated. 
Purée the soup with an immersion blender until smooth; season with salt and pepper.
Pour hot soup into bowl and top with a generous amount of pistou.
Max worked for many of his 15 years at Berry's pet food in Alexandria, Ontario. You can just make out his sillhoutte, sitting at the door waiting to say hello. 
He caught mice and greeted visitors with a purr. Poor Max had cancer and had to be put down a few weeks ago. I'll miss him and our weekly pats.
Misti Ko from Burnaby, British Columbia has a cool thing going. It's an ATC jam, an artist trading card where 3 people contribute to one card. She starts the original one with a rubber stamped image of a pencil and mails it off to a friend. Friend adds to the card (in this case, the red dotted background) and then mails it onto a third person (me). I added the silly line drawings of kitties.
Here's another example. The third person on the jam card mails it back to Misti where she uploads the finished ATC to her blog it-starts-with-a-pencil.blogspot.com If you want to participate, e-mail her to get started.
On Saturday night, we went to a surprise birthday party for Greg who turned 50. And boy, was he ever surprised! My friend Holly made him a special birthday hat.
He and his partner Bonnie sang a bit and laughed a lot.
I made the cake...with help from a bottle of Labatt 50 beer.
And I also helped serve the cake. What fun!
Yesterday's breakfast. Yogurt and a handful of golden raspberries picked moments before. Golden raspberries (and I don't mean the awards given to truly awful films) produce fruit mid-summer and then again in the fall. They are very sweet and I suspect almost too delicate to sell successfully in a grocery store. If you have room in your garden, plant a few canes. Just when everything else is in the garden is on its way out, these guys start producing fruit like mad.
I had friends visiting from New Zealand over for lunch yesterday so I put together a light lunch. A selection of cheeses...
...a warm, olive miche...
...curried deviled eggs plus a salad made up from the garden: the last tomatoes, cucumbers and pepper with basil leaves.
I also made a charred, marinated eggplant dish. I oiled and grilled both sides of the unpeeled eggplant slices. Then I poured over them some maple-balsamic vinegar and olive oil, topped with a little salt and pepper. Turned out great. 
My friend Susan is growing Shitake mushrooms on logs in her basement.
She has four logs hanging from the ceiling and in five days, she gets mature, edible mushrooms.
She gave me a few to take home.
I cooked chicken breasts in white wine, soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, fresh ginger root and shitake mushrooms. Very yummy.
This autumn, the strangest things have been popping out of the lawn. Something I'd never seen before.
I thought this was a cool mushroom and NO, I did NOT eat it...
...but instead spore-printed it to try to identify it.
I am thinking it is a Slippery Jill (Suillus salmonicolor, also known as Suillus subluteus) from the Bolete family. My books say it's edible but I bet it tastes pretty yucky. It was slimy and left a stain on my fingers. No way was I going to try that! Sometime "edible" doesn't necessarily mean "tasty." 
Then I came across a regular fall lawn mushroom: the Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus). You are supposed to pick them as fresh as possible when they look like this...
...and not like this, on day two...
...and especially not like this on day three when it's all black and inky. I don't eat these mushrooms and don't recommend them either. They are edible and yes, I tried them once but wasn't mad for them.
Okay now, this IS edible and was given to me by a friend. When he can find them, he picks at least one large Hen of the Woods (Grifola frondosa) every year. This weighed 10 pounds when picked and I got half of it.
It kind of looks like it's made up of feathers, sort of like a hen.
To eat it, you pull it apart, like a caulifower or broccoli and clean each part to make sure there's no dirt in each segment...
...and then put them in the dehydrator to use in soup for another day...
...or fry them up in butter for immediate consumption. Very delicious!
