I love St. Patrick's day. I have loved it for years, and I REALLY loved it when my favorite color was green, which was about a year ago. Unfortunately, it has moved to red, though that has not reflected in my choice of holidays as I still greatly despise Valentine's day. I do love St. Patrick's day, although I think it is ironic that 100 years ago the Irish were looked down on so terribly and now they are one of the few Ethnic groups who get their own Holiday (what can I say, we freakin' rock) and I my new red hair color helps me feel very festive, I wonder if I could pick up some freckles from somewhere?
Due to the fact that I come from a rather proud Irish Heritage, celebrating St. Patrick's day has always been fairly important. My last name is a solid reminder of our ancestry, and my dad has never been one to forgetting our round and jolly relatives (no, I'm not talking about Santa Claus). My first memories of St. Patrick's day usually involved our family sitting down to watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People (a pure classic, with some very impressive special affects for their time, along with Sean Connery singing, who could resist, right?) and possibly Far and Away (also a classic, but of a different sort).
St. Patty's traditionally became the day of the year where we would watch Darby O'Gill, Far and Away, and the Quiet Man (also a great classic). It was around this time that my grandma and grandpa traveled South to hang out with their desert-living son, my dad, and we came to integrate food in our Irish traditions, I was probably about 9 or 10. My grandma, my dad's mom, was not particularly Irish, but she was an excellent cook (as you can recognize by the potato shape of herself and all her children, no offense, dad!) and unexpectedly the Green day was a favorite of her's to cook for.
As children we adored helping out with the feast preparations and grandma was fairly traditional, creating corned beef, potatoes, clover buns (tiny rolls made by separating the dough into three round balls, so when they cooked they looked like clover) and cinnamon rolls (I don't think these were traditionally Irish, I think Grandma just really enjoyed making them). At first I didn't particularly appreciate corned beef, as it's a rather stringy, thick, weird kind of meat, but as someone willing to get a little edgy for the sake of a holiday, I partook and learned to enjoy. Since then, my grandma has gotten quite a bit older and now lives in a nursing home and doesn't cook (which I think she may be secretly relieved over) so we rarely get to experience her traditional meals.
This is a particular reason I was quite pleased when we were invited over for dinner at my dad and stepmom's house for dinner this year. Although I know my brother was slightly dubious over having to remain to watch four potential movies (we added the Secret of Roan Inish into our traditional Irish films, also a great movie) he still showed up, but missed most of the fun. My stepmom (thanks again Randi, cause you are AWESOME) had created a green feast one of which I had never seen the comparison to, despite being brought up Irish.
Randi had greenified mashed potatoes, created lemonade with a lime slice and put them in green cups (making them very Pattied) had green jello with kiwis (is that spelled right?) and (the best) green mint ice cream (though she didn't have to greenify that cause you know mint ice cream is already green.) It made me green with envy on how superbly everything turned out (he he he, okay that wasn't an overly inventive joke, but I couldn't resist).
Here is the picture of the greenified mashed potatoes, which I found particularly funny. My daughter (6) has always insisted that she dislikes mashed potatoes (how very lacking in Irishness of her) but when she saw these green ones she was estatic (did not see that coming). She ate two helpings (unbelievable) and kept telling me how it looked like ice cream with chocolate syrup on top (this would be the dark brown gravy). I had to laugh, so all I had to do to make her eat her food was to color it something funky. Randi and I joked about making the next meal pink for her birthday...who knows :P
So that's the general gist of my St. Patrick's day. Juliah's dad, also sent her a box containing dance clothes, which she put on and unexpectedly looked just like a cute little Irish dancer, so we made her do a couple jigs for us, as shown below.
Cute huh? Anyway, next year I really hope with stick with the Irish Accents Only, I better start practicing now :P
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