JULIE PEGG
THE ACORN’S “EVERYTHING BUT THE BIRD” First Course: Warm Pumpkin Salad w Bourbon Maple Dressing Mains: Braised Maitake Mushrooms w/ Chestnut Cornbread Stuffing, Roasted Parsnips, Candied Beets, German Butter Potato Gratin & House Gravy Desset: Pumpkin Pie Float w/ Salted Ginger Snap Cookie. - theacornrestaurant.ca
with mirepoix (diced celery, onions, carrot) until the mixture takes on a nice caramel colour. Add vegetable stock, whisk in a bit of tomato paste and blend until silky smooth.” This is the taste of umami in spades. You can even add finely ground and toasted chickpeas for deep, earthy, meaty and really rich gravy, he says. He makes this no-meat gravy sound so good I want to rush home and make it immediately. For dessert, Brian reprises Acorn’s Thanksgiving pumpkin float. Non-dairy pumpkin ice cream made from cashew cream drifts atop sweet pumpkin soda fashioned from a strained syrup made with the pumpkin’s “innards” (seeds, the stringy stuff and bits of adherent flesh) and sugar dissolved in warm water. The “icing” on the float is a glutenfree ginger snap. I am about to parlay these dishes into my holiday menu(s) when a vegan friend pops by. She is Jewish and chimes in with “Don’t forget latkes for Hanukkah—cauliflower and potato, or sweet potato and cinnamon.” Now, I’m far from vegetarian. However, this year I’m giving Brian’s veg-centric menu (and maybe even those latkes) a whirl. I’ll even let the sprouts and turnips go. But the bird stays.