Six weeks ago, we visited my (American) family for (Canadian) Thanksgiving.

(Can I note that I don't understand why so many of my [Canadian] friends felt the need to be perplexed by this trip?  My parents are retired.  We can visit them whenever we want.  What mattered is not that it was Thanksgiving, but that we had time off, and it was a lovely time of the year to go to PA.  Well, really, every time is a lovely time of year to go to PA, except possibly winter.)

It feels remarkable that we were there six weeks ago, mostly because a week after we went to PA for three days, we went to Asia for two weeks.  The one trip kind of overshadows the other.

Anyhow, we went to the nut outlet, while we were there.  You know, the nut outlet.  And they had strikingly good prices on a lot of, well, nuts.  So there are a lot of nuts in my pantry now.

Our favourite nuts are macadamia nuts.  This is in no small part because we fell in love with good fresh mac nuts when we were in Hawaii in December 2012 and 2013.  The mac nuts we have found since we returned from Hawaii have been, well, mehcadamia nuts. 

But the ones from the nut outlet?  They were good!  I bought two bags.  This morning's pancakes caused me to finish the first bag and start the second.

And the nuts in the second bag aren't as good.  The last nuts from bag one (which has been sitting in a tupperware in the fridge since I opened it) taste much fresher than the first nuts from bag two (which has been sitting in the panttry).

Moral of the story: refrigerate your nuts. 

Meanwhile, tonight's dinner was excellent: composed baby spinach salad, with roasted butternut squash and brussels sprouts, Sichuan pepper duck breast, apple, pomegranate and flash-pickled onion.  Oh, and (less good) macadamia nuts.  We have to try harder in winter, but occasionally it's worth it.