Eating Irish: Ain’t It Awful?

Brunch & Pub Supper Recipes for the Dubious and Delighted

What would the leisure hours look like, if it weren’t for holiday parties, especially the less-ballyhooed fêtes of March?

You have Pi Day (yes, I’m going to a Pi Potluck) — and of course, St. Paddy’s Day, which is often relinquished to drinking.

The truth is, St. Patrick’s Saint day is an excellent occasion to break a fast like Lent, or eat until your belly pokes out of your pants!

I’m a book-learned cook. There are no “recipes handed down from my Grand.” I have to tell you, the idea in my maternal O'Halloran family that there was such a thing as “Irish cuisine” would‘ve generated a big laugh, or maybe a cold potato thrown at your head. 19th and 20th century Irish-American food lore is about food scarcity and drowning your troubles— not plates of delights. My mother and her sisters’ idea of a great meal was going out for Chop Suey in downtown Minneapolis.

My mom eventually learned how to cook, loosely, from a tome given to her by her friend Mary Lou Sullivan in 1958, The Betty Crocker …