Dear Reader, St Patrick's Day & Bits of Blarney!

Let your hair down and enjoy yourself

'cause everybody is Irish on

St. Patrick's Day!

For me as for endless others, St. Patrick's day I'm sure will forever be synonymous with long pub crawls especially during our good old student days. That and the endless flow of  good stout!

Now here is a stout fact that was drilled into me by my fellow foreign students from Ireland at the housing college in Sydney who knowing I was a 'green' (no pun intended) beer drinker in those days insisted that I must be tutored in the art of pouring a stout, the correct way lest I embarrass them in a good ole' Irish pub!

The true & tested method followed at the local breweries  is that they pour the stout about 3/4 of the glass, wait about three minutes, then fill the rest. The cloverleaf pattern is done during the second half of the pour. The server guides the glass around in a pattern while pouring the beer to make the cloverleaf pattern.

And that my friends is the proper way to pour a stout!

Seems like everyday with this blog, Mum & Dad learn something new about their daughter & here they thought, all I did in Sydney was get an education..smiles...

Not to take away from the beer guzzling now but historically speaking, St Patrick's Day (colloquially St. Paddy's Day) is an annual feast day that celebrates Saint Patrick (circa AD 385–461), the most commonly recognized of the patron saints of Ireland.

It is generally celebrated on 17 March which this week falls on Wednesday.

We are all familiar with the street parades, family picnics, green t-shirts, Irish dancing, music and pints  & pints of Guinness that signify St Patrick’s Day – but what do we know of St. Patrick himself?

St. Patrick wasn’t born Irish but he has become an integral part of the Irish heritage. His services across Ireland in the 5th century are said to have brought religion to the country. Legend also has it that St. Patrick used a shamrock (3-leaf clover) in his preaching to explain the Holy Trinity and that he was responsible for banishing all the snakes from Ireland. Cool eh?

Here in the US, Saint Patrick's Day is widely celebrated by Irish and non-Irish alike (especially by those who love their beer, I might add) It's the day to wear green & those who are caught not wearing green are pinched, usually affectionately.

New York not surprisingly was the first city to take out the largest ever St Patrick' s Day parade. Held since 1762, the parade draws more than 1 million spectators each year.

Chicago has also developed a unique tradition of coloring the river water green. It started in 1962 when 100 pounds of green vegetable dye were added to its river, enough to keep it green for a week. The tradition has continued till date. Now, 40 pounds of a green food coloring keep the river green for only a few hours.

One of my absolute favorite cities in the US is Savannah, Georgia, which dyes its downtown city fountains green with the second largest St. Paddy's Day celebrations in the US. Over 750,000 people attend the parade and festivities all throughout the city. And guess what is the color of the beer that flows? Green of course! 

So let's get into the spirit with traditional Irish foods this coming week

~

Stobhach Gaelach, Old Irish Stew, Modern Makeover

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

Farmhouse Apple & Barley Parfaits

~

!Happy St Patrick's Day!

Please enjoy these fun pics from the parade held in Chicago over the weekend, courtesy of the Chicago Tribune.

An Irish leprechaun walks towards the crowd during the parade on Columbus Drive in downtown Chicago. 

The Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Band lead the parade down Columbus Drive in downtown Chicago.

The Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Band.

A border collie mix suffers through a leprechaun hat and orange braids at the the northwest side of Chicago's

And please don't end up like the 60 overzealous drunk people who got arrested this weekend at the parade in Chicago. That's Right! See you tomorrow in the kitchen for more food & fun!

Sláinte,

Devaki