I miss the excitement of US Thanksgiving.

I miss the rush of preparation and the travel leading up to the day, the food, festivities, gathering and cheerful gratitude of the day, and the retail madness that follows the next day.

The Canadian version somehow doesn’t quite manage to evoke all that, but I’m grateful for a holiday in October.

For our Thanksgiving last month we got some Mink chocolate bars.

Mink is a chocolate café here in Vancouver; their chocolates are handcrafted here using the finest Belgian chocolate.

The bars come in beautiful arty packages with fun catchy names.

I tried two; The Girls’ Favourite and Mermaid’s Choice.

The Mermaid’s Choice is a dark chocolate with ganache filling of burnt caramel and fleur de sel with a hint of rosemary.

The taste is amazing! The sweetness of the caramel and the salt makes for a very flavourful combination.

The dark chocolate shell is smooth and creamy and has a nice crunch.

The Girls’ Favourite is a 30% cacao milk chocolate with French hazelnut and almond praline.

It’s smooth and nutty with just the right amount sweetness to it. It’s rich and decadent.

Since today was a normal working day for us, I went by Mink Café on my way from work and got the Dream and …By Any Other Name bars.

We had them for dessert after our lovely dinner while pondering the things we’re thankful for again.