Or rather, une canadienne et un mexicain after last night’s delicious Canada Day dinner.

(For those who aren’t up on their French-Canadian folk music – and you really should be! – Un canadien errant [A wandering Canadian] is one of the most hauntingly beautiful melodies in the folk canon. My grade 2 classes sang it for the spring concert… Except that one kid actually thought the title was Un canadien EST ROND – A round Canadian. I laughed for days about that one!)

Anyways.

Erick and I celebrated Canada Day with a pretty low-key dinner on our deck. I’m headed to Newfoundland in just two days with the Siamsa Singers so our time together is precious and we decided to do away with the C-Day hoopla this year.

I styled the table really simply, but in -what else?- red and white. A personal touch is that the two placemats are actually from the Bazar del Sabado in Mexico City, so we’ve got the cross-cultural thing going on here! How perfectly Canadian of us. 🙂

(Please ignore the fact that we  were drinking French wine. It was a yummy gift and we didn’t have any Niagara reds to hand!)

The red begonias are clipped from our two hanging baskets and the daisies are growing wild in our garden. The little votive-turned-vase is from Ikea, and is left over from our wedding decor.

The menu was very simple, but turned out absolutely perfectly!

I marinated two steaks in a mixture of olive oil, lemon zest, parsley and oregano from our garden (!), and salt and pepper. Those went straight on the grill for about about a nanosecond (which was almost too long, but they were still juicy and tender). The salad was made of mini cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh chives, basil from our garden, red onion, and topped off with a variation on my dijon dressing. In keeping with our Canadian theme, I used maple syrup instead of sugar. Total yum!

Over dinner, Erick and I reflected on how lucky and blessed we are to live in this beautiful country. Despite our flaws (Stephen Harper and Rob Ford, anyone?), we are a country of inspired human beings (Chris Hadfield! Oscar Peterson! Alice Munro!). We may not be at the World Cup, but we have universal health care and an education system that I am proud to be part of. Canada for the WIN!

So, how did you celebrate Canada Day? Or, for my international readers, how do you celebrate YOUR country’s “big day”?