An Irish Kind of Day

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!