Who knew: Canada on a platter

Happy Canada Day, folks!

Time to bust out some maple syrup for your pancakes, opt for a 100% Canadian beef or salmon burger, and treat yourself to a big, chocolately nanaimo bar for dessert.

I don't know what qualifies as "Canadian" food (here's Wikipedia's take), but I did have fun getting food to represent Canada for an art exhibit I made back in high school.

The fast food meal above consists of a burger, some fries, an English muffin, and a straw, all served on a platter.

If creating art were one of my talents, you'd probably have an easier time seeing how it's linked to Canada and attempts to capture all four of my exhibit's themes: optical illusions, hidden images, word play, and Canadian pride.

• The burger: Nothing shows Canadian pride like sewing a Canadian flag on your backpack -- unless you're an American trying to pass for one of us (and who can blame them?).


• "French" fries and "English" muffin: Bilingualism and our French/English background rock.


• Straw: Paired with an English muffin/puck, this hockey stick is just the thing for a game of one of Canada's two national sports, hockey!


• Platter: So it doesn't look exactly like a beaver tail, but it beats the one below (though that BeaverTail sure looks tasty!).

Hope you were able to sample some tasty Canadian treats today; let us know if you had anything particularly interesting -- flipper pie, nougabricot, and bakeapple pie come to my mind.