Shaun Smith is a writer, journalist and former chef in Toronto. He is the author of the young adult novel Snakes & Ladders. Thanksgiving is Oct. 12 in Canada so I decided to put together a feast to celebrate the holiday, calling on the authors of some new cookbooks for help in setting the table. We have recipes for everything from a main course and side dishes to dessert, all or any of which will complement your Thanksgiving meal beautifully.

Because there's no law saying we must eat turkey on Thanksgiving, I asked chef James Walt for his recipe for hearty braised short ribs with cauliflower purée and pickled mushrooms, which he serves at Araxi restaurant in Whistler, B.C., and which appears in his new cookbook of the same name.

Linda Haynes, co-founder of Toronto's Ace Bakery, provides a recipe for a delicious warm salad of honey-roasted squash with crumbled feta and walnuts, from her book Two Dishes, which she co-authored with her daughter, Devin Connell.

Food writer and educator Diane Morgan, from Portland, Ore., serves up a scrumptious spiced pumpkin layer cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert from her book, The New Thanksgiving Table.

Thanksgiving is all about sharing special food with family and friends, so this month, I'm offering an old family recipe for Yorkshire pudding, perfected over many holidays by my mother's boyfriend, Tom Trowbridge.

This is a dish that goes beautifully with any roasted meat, and it absolutely adores gravy! It's easy to prepare and impressive at the table, but be sure to follow the instructions closely — heating the oil is the secret to this recipe.

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James Walt's braised short ribs with cauliflower purée and pickled mushrooms

(From Araxi: Seasonal Recipes from the Celebrated Whistler Restaurant, by James Walt. Published by Douglas & McIntyre)

James Walt is the executive chef at Araxi restaurant in Whistler. James Walt, who has been executive chef at Araxi restaurant in Whistler, B.C., since 1998, was raised in a family that loved cooking.

"I grew up in the Ottawa Valley, and my mother's family in particular were all excellent cooks," he says. "Thanksgiving was when I first started getting involved with cooking. In addition to the ham or turkey, we'd have up to 12 or 13 types of vegetables. And we'd always have at least three pies — a pumpkin, an apple and a mincemeat. Food was taken very seriously."

This year, Walt says he plans to spend the holiday with his wife and their two children harvesting the last of their garden vegetables for dinner.

"I always make sure there's at least one squash plant left and some carrots," he says. "We'll cook a large bird, a chicken or turkey."

He'd better get his rest as well on the holiday, because on the next day, he'll be hosting 250 people at Araxi to watch the season finale of Gordon Ramsay's reality TV show Hell's Kitchen.

"All three finalists will be here at Araxi," he says. "There'll be a reception with B.C. wineries and canapés featuring local ingredients. There'll even be a satellite broadcast by Fox TV from here as well."

For the show's winner, who will be announced during the broadcast, the grand prize is a stint working at Walt's side as his head chef at Araxi during the Winter Olympics in February 2010 and for upwards of one year after that. "It's going to be a lot of fun but very busy," Walt says. "We already have 4,500 reservations booked for the Olympics."

Some of those diners will surely be ordering Walt's braised short rib.

"The rib has been on the menu at Araxi for the last two winters," he says. "People really, really love it. It's great after a day of skiing."

The recipe calls for veal stock, which most home cooks don't typically make. We've included Walt's recipe for veal stock below, but if you want to make things a bit easier, Walt suggests substituting any high-quality store-bought beef broth.

"If it's a really thin broth," he says, "add a tablespoon of tomato sauce after you've sautéed the carrots, celery and shallots."

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Linda Haynes's honey-roasted squash with crumbled feta and walnuts

(From Two Dishes: Mother and Daughter, Two Cooks, Two Lifestyles, Two Takes by Linda Haynes and Devin Connell. Published by McClelland & Stewart.)

Linda Haynes wrote the book Two Dishes with her daughter, Devin Connell. Linda Haynes's parents met during the Second World War when her father was a Canadian officer stationed in Belgium.

"The minute my mother married my dad," says Haynes, "she was determined to be Canadian, so at Thanksgiving, she always cooked the traditional meal of turkey, gravy, dressing and all the other stuff."

Haynes herself grew up in Ottawa, Montreal and Sweden and remembers those Thanksgiving dinners fondly because her mother, Paulette, was such a wonderful cook.

"I'm convinced my boyfriends loved her more than me," she laughs, "because whenever they came for those meals, she always made them feel comfortable and special. She always poured that extra glass of wine."

Haynes continued the family tradition of cooking, first co-founding Ace Bakery in Toronto in 1993 with her husband, Martin, and then this year co-authoring the cookbook Two Dishes with her daughter, Devin Connell, who herself trained in pastry cooking at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and runs the Toronto café Delica.

This recipe from their book takes advantage of the wonderful squash available at this time of year — and without which no Thanksgiving table would be complete.

"This recipe is great as an appetizer"" says Haynes, "or you can put it on the table as one of your many dishes. It's really pretty because you've got that little bit of salad, which lightens it up. I love the warm squash and the chilled salad together."

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Diane Morgan's spiced pumpkin layer cake with cream cheese frosting

(From The New Thanksgiving Table: An American Celebration of Family, Friends, and Food by Diane Morgan. Published by Chronicle Books.)

Diane Morgan has travelled to all corners of the United States collecting Thanksgiving recipes. Diane Morgan has travelled to all corners of the United States collecting Thanksgiving recipes.

"What someone is cooking in California is really different from what someone is cooking in the deep south," she says. "All of it tends to be turkey focused, and there's certainly the traditions of yams or sweet potatoes, and stuffing, and something with cranberries, but how that's executed from place to place is really different. You might see a stuffing in the southwest that is focused on chilies, but in New England, you would have stuffing with Bell's seasoning, a powdered sage, thyme and marjoram mix. It's a classic regional stuffing. Or you'll find a crab appetizer in Maryland that you won't find anywhere else."

Morgan, who lives in Oregon, says she was inspired to do a cookbook with these recipes because of what she calls the "purity" of the Thanksgiving holiday.

"I love the fact that there are no gifts at Thanksgiving; there's nothing religious going on," she says. "It is all just about being around the table with family and friends. Anyone and everyone can celebrate it."

Her pumpkin layer cake is an easy recipe you can make up to two days ahead and which freezes well for up to a month.

"A lot of people are afraid of making pies," she says, "so, I wanted to offer an easy pumpkin dessert that was not a pie."

She adds that it, along with all the other desserts, makes for excellent leftovers.

"In our house, on the day after Thanksgiving, the previous night's desserts are fair game for breakfast. Whoever is up first can eat whatever they want, and when it's gone, it's gone," she laughs. "It's a great motivator to get people out of bed."