Ever feel like a bear heading into hibernation?

Fall does it to me every year. All I want to do is pad around in slippers and leg warmers and have friends over to eat casseroles and drink red wine. More of a tortoise than a hare in general, during the transition to the colder months I tend to slow to a comatose escargot’s pace.

The leaves on the trees that line my street are turning dusty yellow and pumpkin orange before plummeting to their deaths.

Which is all to say that my canning pace has sloooooooooowed right down after that wild harvest frenzy. A trip to Toronto for a friend’s wedding curtailed my plans to can during the past week, but I got a few fun ones coming up so I thought I’d make a list of canning recipes to come, all using what’s in season right now in Quebec  – and pretty much the only local stuff that lasts through winter thanks to the miracle of cold storage.

* A slightly piquante beet, cabbage and horseradish relish

* A few sweet-tart cranberry numbers (jam, cranberry-walnut conserve etc.)

* Some kind of mellow pumpkin jam or conserve

* Some smooth and sexy oignons confits (onion jam)

* Sauerkraut, ja

In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of a very small pumpkin and the chandelier E. and I bought in Toronto and hung in our dining room an hour ago (hot tip: the chandelier shop hidden behind another building directly across from the Drake Hotel on Queen Street West has a whole lot of vintage fixtures on sale for 50 per cent off right now):

La citrouille

Le chandelier