Happy American Thanksgiving!

This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US of A, aka south of the border to those of us here in frozen Canadia (a moniker coined by one of my hilarious Irish cousins). In the past week or so, there have been a flurry of articles and lists of vegetarian recipe offerings in preparation for those who wanted a partly or entirely meatless Thanksgiving. The first one I saw was sent to me by loyal reader MKM of London, entitled "Thanksgiving Mains for Vegetarians." Then came "5 amazingly tasty vegetarian Thanksgiving options" from the Mother Nature Network that somebody had posted on twitter. And most recently, treehugger.com put up "9 Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes Carnivores Will Eat, Too." It's a full-blown trend! 

This trend paints a nice picture of familial harmony in these days of increasingly diverse dietary needs. We were at a family function yesterday where there was a lot of delicious food - something for everyone. And lately, "everyone" includes: vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, nut-free, gluten-free, soy-free, as well as all the usual taste preferences. Making sure all get fed is getting harder and harder. So having options like side dishes which are meat-free, or gluten-free, etc., becomes more and more important, at the same time as things like the MM movement make these kinds of dishes more mainstream and familiar. I searched through the MRM recipe archives to see how many Thanksgiving-friendly recipes I could find and came up with the following:

• Mushroom and Wild Rice Casserole
• Pot Luck Potatoes
• Savoury Pot Pie
• Roasted Vegetables
• Sweet Potato Corn Bread
• Savoury Stuffing
• Vegetarian Pate du Quebec
• Curried Squash and Rice Casserole
• Lentil Loaf with Potato Filling

I could call this "9 Meatless Family Favourites to Ensure a Happy Thanksgiving for All." And speaking of MM, this was a big week for the movement, as news broke that the Los Angeles City Council had voted unanimously to pass a "Meatless Monday Resolution," which makes it the official recommendation of the City of LA to eat meat-free one day a week for health and environmental reasons. This even made headlines here in Canada via our national newspaper, The Globe and Mail (thanks go out again to the ever-vigilant MKM for this link). It's big news that a city that large has jumped on board and gives us hope that others will join in. I wrote a letter to London's mayor and didn't even receive the courtesy of a response. Maybe that will change the next time I write to him. I'll let you know if it does.

Seeing as this is a week of celebration and I have no recipe prepared, I am going to leave you with the above links only, trusting that you'll find at least one option to your liking for tomorrow's meatless fare. If you still weren't satisfied and felt like some beautiful, clean linework and bold graphics would help prime your palate, this week's "Cooking Up Comics" is a delicious-looking Butternut Squash Soup, which would be great with some crusty wholegrain bread and a nice salad. Just saying. (Stella and I loved the panel where Alisa is crying while cutting the onions - nice!) Hope this week is filled with many things in your life for which you are thankful, American or not.