Our Thanksgiving

Banana at our "summer home" in Osoyoos and the infamous pheasant stuffed with sour cherries - very yummy by the way!

I love fall. I love the colors of fall - the burning orange leaves on the trees, the way the air feels crisp and fresh in the morning and the clear skies and sparkly stars. One of my absolute favorite places to go in the fall is Mariposa Orchards and fruit stand.

This fruit stand is everything I love about fall in one location. I like to start off by exploring the mounds of pumpkins, with their unique shapes, bumps and oddities.


I have a thing about imperfect fruits and vegetables. I love the variation in color and looking at the varieties of different pumpkins that are there. Next I wander among the bins of squash, exploring the crooked necks, the green swans, the butternuts and acorns and the spaghetti's. There is always a new variety that catches my eye and I always feel slightly saddened that only DH and I actually enjoy eating squash in our house. There is a quick perusal through the ornamental corns - purple, burgundy, black and yellow - I love the look of these and always regret that there is no room to buy any as my trunk will soon be filled with vegetables to eat. After the squash and corn, I hit the tomato bins.

Tomatoes are one of my favorites fruits/vegetables and nothing compares to a good tomato sliced and sprinkled with some capers, a bit of salt and some fresh ground pepper. After tomatoes come the apples, promising crisp juicy taste bite after bite. Pears, pepper, cucumbers, cabbage, onions and the last of the plums are next. This is Ale picking out some Tomatillos for salsa verde.

I always stop at the display of hot peppers admiring the variety of burn-your-mouth-off-hot peppers and usually convince my DH to buy a couple of new ones so that I can live vicariously through him.


Next I hit the garlic and oogle the five or seven varieties and their delicious descriptions. Then it is on to the fresh apple juices, the honeys and the homemade canned items from "Heather's Kitchen". Finally, if the kids have been well behaved we pick out a fruit snack or honey stick and with our now frozen hands pay for our cart piled high with delicious "treats". Thanksgiving always signals my last trip to Osoyoos until Spring Break or later so this last stop at Mariposa is always bittersweet. Enjoyable because it is a feast for the senses and my mind runs wild with all of the possibilities of what to make. There is something about being surrounded by the harvest with all of its color, taste and imperfection that is exhilerating that I find myself stalling to leave. But inevitably time runs out, DH's patience wears thin (caught on film no less!)

and once again we are off, with our new treasures added to newly bought wine and a few items being brought home from our summer home for the winter.