It's Saint Patrick's Day
And although I don't have any Irish in my bones
(Husband Jim does because his Scottish ancestors stopped in Ireland
for a generation or so before they came to the United States)
It started with breakfast . . .
In the breakfast room
(of course)
A Full "Irish"
real Irish sausages, grilled tomatoes, eggs, fried bread
And tea and toast and marmalade!
After breakfast, we readied the house for company
for my Irish friends came to lunch . . .
A lace tablecloth (Irish lace?)
Damask napkins (Irish linen?)
The Spode blue and white transfer ware
And for each guest, a menu and a small loaf of Top of the Tower Irish Soda bread
with an Irish blessing
The centerpiece is a bouquet of tulips --
Orange tulips -- because we're "protestant"!
A big loaf of Top of the Tower Irish Soda bread
(enough for both lunch and dinner)
And to me the words Salad and Irish food doesn't compute
But you do find a recipe both in Myrtle Allen's and Darina Allen's cookbooks
(the same recipe)
And I can see an Irish farm wife going out to the henhouse to gather the eggs and on the way back in, picking what is ripe from the garden for a salad to go with the leftover Sunday joint.
And both provide a recipe for a salad dressing
made with egg yolks, brown sugar, malt vinegar, a tad of mustard and cream
To be passed at table
(and at our table in a Waterford jug)
The entree is cock-a-leekie pie
A take on traditional cock-a-leekie soup
Dessert was a Guinness chocolate orange cake with an orange butter creme
And after . . .
Irish coffee
Some Irish liqueurs for those who wanted
And this year since next Sunday is Palm Sunday,
we went to church to make palm crosses
Not hard once you get the hand
One for every parishioner on Sunday
And dinner . . .
Why, corned beef and cabbage, of course.
I can't remember a St. Patrick's Day when we didn't have
corned beef and cabbage.
A new recipe that I tried this year
In the oven -- the beef rubbed with brown sugar and then simmered in Guinness
It was a great St. Patrick's Day
full of wonderful Irish food!
2 comments:
What a wonderful Irish day! You really had a full day...and every bit of it Irish - how nice! I had a dinner party last night with Corned Beef & Cabbage (of course) and we did a pseudo Irish breakfast this morning with eggs, soda bread, bacon, and grilled tomatoes. Your home is lovely - glad I found your blog!
For not having an Irish bone in your body as you said...you do it up right. There wasn't one thing on that beautiful table that I wouldn't be super happy to be eating right now. Wow!
Ginene
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