Toora Loora Hoora

The winner of Rhys Bowen & Clare Broyles' ALL THAT IS HIDDEN is Joan Emerson! Joan, please contact Rhys via her website for your prize!

 

 

 

Parade in Albany NY by Sébastien Barré (Flickr)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Happy St. Patrick’s Day, the day when famously everyone in the US becomes Irish for 24 hours. I hope you all have something green on, and that the corned beef and cabbage is ready in the instapot! 

 

Of course, in reality, the American celebration doesn’t have a lot in common with the actual day in Éire, where it’s traditionally been a combination religious festival and bank holiday. Yes, it’s true: the actual citizens of Ireland did not invent the Shamrock Shake, green beer, or the Sexy Leprechaun costume. Shocking, I know. That corned beef and cabbage? American. They don’t even dye their rivers green, for goodness sake.

My theory is when you combine a large immigrant population in the United States with a holiday that offers the opportunity for 1) booze, 2) food and 3) a huge American-style blow-out, it’s going to take off in popularity. Cinco de Mayo has become very popular in the past decade or so, and I’m waiting for Chinese New Year to take off in a big way, because we need a festival in late January/early February and I, for one, love Chinese food and beer. Oktoberfest has become so prevalent in the US that we’ve stopped spelling it the German way. 

 

 

There are immigrant groups that just haven’t been able to bring it across. Sometimes, it’s the timing: the Scots’ Hogmanay takes place on New Years Eve, and there doesn’t seem to be a strong impetus to add haggis to the champagne-and-ball-dropping festivities. Muslims have the most amazing food for Eid celebrations (seriously, if you get an invite, go) but alas for American sensibilities, there’s no alcohol involved. I think Holi could be a great fit in the US - who doesn’t like eating Indian food and going wild with colored powder and water? It looks like so much fun! Unfortunately, the lunar date always puts it in March, and there aren’t many places in the continental US where the weather is right for dressing in light garments and getting color-bombed.

Reds, what holidays would you like to see added to the American calendar? And how are you celebrating St. Paddy’s Day?

RHYS BOWEN: a few years ago my publisher with misguided enthusiasm sent me to New York on St. Patrick’s Day. It turned out that nobody was going to come to a book event on St. Patrick’s Day, because the streets were full of drunken revelers. Lesson learned.

I’m always annoyed that there is no specific English festival that we celebrate. Also, the English have no national costume and no real national dances apart from morris dancing which is incredibly silly,  so how about St. George’s Day when we could get together around a May pole and eat bangers and mash, a cream tea, maybe toss a few pancakes or just go down the nearest pub.

Hank Phillippi Ryan: I am still annoyed by losing my hour of sleep. I think we should have national sleep day! When everybody gets to have anything celebratory they want, say, mullled wine, or hot milk, or tea with brandy, or like, anything, hot chocolate let’s say,  and then they get to take a nap. A big nap! And everybody gets to get back their hour of sleep. Yes, this is kind of brilliant. I want “national get back your lost hour of sleep day.” Who’s in? 

 

JULIA: I think we can all get behind that holiday, Hank.

 

 

 

 

JENN McKINLAY: I love St. Patrick’s Day! I love it when NPR reports live from Dublin and they interview the revelers. Hilarious. And I have so many fond memories of going to the parade in New Haven with my college friends and, yes, drinking green beer. So ridiculous! It’s not that big of an event in Phoenix. We do Cinco de Mayo pretty well in the SW. Chinese New Year has long been celebrated in my house because I’m never ready for the calendar New Year and prefer to start my resolutions, etc. on the Chinese New Year plus there’s egg rolls. My pick for a new holiday would be Jolabokaflod (Christmas book flood). The Icelandic tradition started in 1944 and basically books are given on Dec 24th and everyone spends the day reading their new books and drinking hot chocolate. Hank, you could probably work in a nap as well!

HALLIE EPHRON: I live in a town where more kids take Irish Step Dancing than ballet. My neighbors were the Murphys, the Murphys, and the Murphys. I’m very fond of my neighbors, Irish soda bread is ok, but my memories of St. Patrick's Day in Boston’s Southie are all about sloppy drunks and how dangerous it was for the long-haired and bearded to attend the Parade. People got beat up.

Corned Beef and Cabbage? Maybe someone can share the trick to buying/cooking corned beef that doesn’t taste like boiled socks.

LUCY BURDETTE: Jenn, I love your holiday, let’s do it! We can add in something delicious to eat. And definitely Hank’s nap…

Hallie, I never thought I liked St Patrick’s Day food until I made my own soda bread and corned beef and cabbage. Both were delicious!

https://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/2021/12/irish-soda-bread-take-one-lucyburdette.html

https://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/2022/03/corned-beef-and-cabbage-in-slow-cooker.html

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I like to make corned beef on St. Patrick's Day, but it is so salty! (Can't get Hallie's "boiled socks" description out of my head…) And Rick doesn't particularly like it, so maybe I'll celebrate with leek and potato soup, instead. With Irish Soda bread! 

Baily Puggins by DaPuglet (Flickr)

Cinco de Mayo is fun here in Texas, but if we were adding a day to the calendar, I think I'd go with Jenn's Jolabokaflod. What bliss. And I'm always so proud of myself when I remember how to spell it!

 

 

JULIA: Now it's your turn, dear readers! What are you doing to celebrate the wearing o' the green? And what's your vote for Best New Holiday to incorporate into our marvelous multicultural calendar? 

Miss Gloria Takes a Tiki Hut Cruise @LucyBurdette

 LUCY BURDETTE: I’m deep in the thickets of writing Key West food critic #13, still untitled, and trying to chug forward and discover the plot strands among the brambles. I do, however, have the ending mostly written. For about half the books I’ve written, the ending has come to my mind well before I’ve actually gotten to that point in the story. I write it down quickly so I don’t lose it, and often have to tweak it a bit to fit the whole book. But I consider the appearance of an ending a great gift, as it gives me something to shoot for when I'm writing the middle. 

In this case, I imagined Miss Gloria and the two Scottish sisters, Violet and Bettina, taking a tiki hut sunset cruise. The idea of those three floating away on one of these silly boats made me giggle as I wrote it. Of course we had to research this by taking a ride on a hut. Our neighbors visiting from Connecticut were happy to be part of the action. I love research like this, because I notice details for the story that I would never have imagined--such as the giant stingray that John saw leap out of the water, and the group of dolphins that curved in and out of the water around us. With St. Patrick's day coming up next week, I realized that setting the scene on that holiday would increase the tension. I'll give you just a snippet in order not to spoil the surprise when you read the book...

        I waited on the dock in front of the Schooner Wharf bar, watching the bustling harbor as the various crafts that had taken tourists out for their Sunset cruises began to appear on the horizon. I was grateful that Danielle had suggested the tiki hut cruise for the ladies—they wouldn’t have blended in well on bigger boats with a younger audience, a lot of alcohol, and live, loud music. St. Patrick’s Day ratcheted up the energy of the party scene even higher than usual. Cups of green beer were being consumed by people dressed in green—green t-shirts, green beads, green tutus, green top hats and ball caps and wigs, and more.

All the excitement of the week, along with the fact that a killer was still on the loose, left me feeling a little anxious about being separated from my friends—I felt like a mom dropping her kid off to kindergarten, I imagined. Except that these were older ladies, wearing green tutus and headbands with leprechauns bouncing above them on metal springs. 

The captain of this tiki boat, a well-tanned woman named Chris who looked to be in her late twenties, had assured me that she had a lot of experience. She had never lost a passenger. That last bit was said with a wide smile that had made the three ladies whoop with laughter and set their leprechauns dancing. 

Even so, I’d made a big fuss about how the passengers were senior citizens—all of them—and I was worried about their safety. It didn’t help my confidence level that she’d dyed her blonde hair green for the day and wore a tutu herself. After noticing my anxiety, Chris had invited me to watch her safety demonstrations—life jackets for everyone were available, plus two easily accessible ring life preservers that would be thrown out if someone fell overboard. She’d captained this very boat for over seven years and never had a single complaint. Besides, the craft wasn’t designed to go over six knots an hour, and she was an expert at avoiding the wake of other boats. 

I wished them a fun trip and reluctantly watched them board and launch. Hopefully they’d have a grand time and wouldn’t come back too tipsy. 

I realized yesterday that when I'm reading, I very rarely choose to know the end of a book before I arrive there naturally, unless it's super-scary or tense. How about you Reds, do you ever skip to the end to make sure everything turns out right?

While I continue to write, don't forget that A DISH TO DIE FOR is coming in August and available for preorder!

Speaking of things in progress, UNSAFE HAVEN will be featured on First Chapter Fun on Thursday March 24. You can follow the fun either in their Facebook Group and or on Instagram @firstchapterfun. 

St. Patrick's Day Feast

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Happy shamrocks to everyone! Did you know that the Irish don't actually celebrate St. Patrick's Day--or at least they didn't before the advent of television gave them a taste of how it was done across the Atlantic. In fact, March 17th is a religious holiday in Ireland, celebrating the death of the saint, and until 1961 pubs weren't even allowed to open on the day. 

Nor do the Irish eat corned beef and cabbage. The Irish ate ham with their cabbage and potatoes, but as ham was too expensive for the poor Irish immigrants in New York, the wives bought leftover salted beef from the ships that came into the docks. It was the cheapest meat available and they had to boil it three times to remove the brine. It was those persecuted and reviled immigrants who in the mid 1800s began gathering on St. Patrick's Day as way to express their identity in an alien culture. By the time the 20th century rolled around, the Irish had assimilated and the tradition had spread across America, celebrated by Irish and non-Irish alike. 

Remember parades? And Irish festivals??

My least favorite St. Patrick's Day tradition (other than green beer and crowded bars) is the pinching, beloved of grade school boys. Who on earth thought up that annoying thing? I never seemed to have anything green to wear and would have to endure being pinched all day.

Although I don't have a scrap of Irish blood (at least as far as I know), the day gives me an excuse for a little Irish feast. This is what I'm planning for tonight--

And I'm going to try cooking the corned beef in the Instant Pot. Any advice on this appreciated! I love Irish soda bread, too, and I remembered to buy some buttermilk, so if I have time I'll bake a loaf. My hubby is less than enthusiastic about the corned beef and cabbage, but as it's only once a year... I just hope the horseradish I've had in the fridge since Christmas is still good.

REDS and readers, how about you? Any special meals or celebrations for St. Paddy's?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Jenn McKinlay: Being Irish, there is so much that I love about St. Patrick's Day. The parades, wearing green (it's a favorite color), corned beef and boiled potatoes, the parties, and even the green beer. Seriously, how can you be glum when you're chugging green beer? It's GREEN!

While I do love my corned beef, boiled potatoes, and green beer, my favorite thing to cook on St. Paddy's Day is Irish soda bread. It has a fascinating history. Introduced in the 1800's, it was meant for people who didn't have ovens (not many did back in the day). Can you imagine? The bread with a baking soda base was cooked in a cast iron pot with a lid by putting it right on top of the hot coals. Because it was made with baking soda it was not as perishable as regular bread. A friend gave me this recipe about eight years ago, and I have made it every St. Patrick's Day since, because...Yum!

Irish Soda Bread

 5 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 stick unsalted butter, cubed and softened

2 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk

1 large egg

2 cups raisins

2 tablespoons caraway seeds

2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a large baking sheet,

knocking off excess flour. Whisk together first five ingredients.

Mix buttermilk and egg in separate bowl then add to flour mixture

until dough is evenly moistened but still lumpy. Add the raisins and

caraway seeds, do not over mix. Divide the dough in two and 

transfer half of the dough to a well-floured surface and gently

knead with floured hands about 8 times to form a soft but slightly
less sticky dough. Pat into a domed 6-inch round on baking sheet.
Repeat the process with the second loaf. Place on baking sheet with 
the first loaf and shape into another domed 6-inch round. Cut a 1/2
inch-deep X on top of each loaf with a sharp knife, then brush 
loaves with melted butter. Bake in middle of oven until golden 
brown about 40 to 45 minutes. Transfer loaves to racks to cool
completely.

And now for my favorite Irish Blessing:

May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light,
My good luck pursue you each morning and night.


What about you, Reds and Readers, what do you love about St. Patrick's Day? 

Sisterhood of the Traveling St. Patrick' Day

Me, Mom, Barb. Note the missing teeth.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: St. Patrick's Day. Clover, green, leprechans (all hard to envision as i look out my window here in Maine and see nothing but snow, snow, snow.) Irish pubs, parades, corned beef and cabbage, GOING MY WAY and  FINIAN'S RAINBOW.  For me, however, St. Patrick's Day has always been, first and foremost, the day I became a sister. 


My first, my very first memory is of standing in my parents' sun-drenched Montgomery bedroom, peeping into the bassinet that held brand new baby Barbara. (We called her Barbie, of course, a nickname she outgrew before high school. Now she's Barb.) Our later encounters were not so gentle; my mother has a story of the time I dragged my hapless sister in a necklock from her crib to the kitchen, announcing, "The baby was crying." Fortunately the lack of oxygen didn't cause any permanent damage. In our middle childhood, I would tease Barb mercilessly - my favorite was to shriek, "Oh no! You have garments on your back!" I like to think I was responsible for expanding her vocabulary.

She was homecoming queen. With laser eyes, natch.

I was always a little jealous of my sister. She was a beautiful child, with big blue eyes and huge fluffy blonde curls and a heart-melting smile. I had glasses and an eye patch and went without my front teeth for three years after they got knocked out. She had school birthday parties, always St. Patrick's themed, with a green clover cake (my mother always crafted beautiful homemade cakes for us) or green cupcakes for twenty. My birthday was in June, always too late for a school celebration and too early for Independence Day. (Not that I'm complaining. My mom compensated by having our annual  trip to the amusement park on my natal day.) When we were college-aged and in our early twenties, Barb never had to pay for booze on St. Patrick's Day - boys would line up to buy her drinks when she announced it was her birthday.

At the 2009 Inaugural Ball with her HH.

She's grown up to be equally enviable. She's lovely and funny and vivacious, runs a successful face-painting business (no, I am not kidding!) has three handsome boys and a husband who looks like King Leonidas in 300 (no, I'm not kidding about that, either.) I'm not jealous, though, just happy that I have such a wonderful sister in my life.

Reds, please raise your steins of green beer and wish Barbara Scheeler a happy birthday! Who are the sisters and practically-sisters who make your St. Patrick's Day fun?


LUCY BURDETTE: What a nice tribute to your sister--happy birthday Barb! I have to say my older sister, (an "Irish twin" just eleven months older), was very gracious when I came along. We shared a room for most of our years, and teased our younger brother and sister without mercy. Oh, there was the one time that she and my cousin talked me into drinking kerosene from a tap, but I believe that was a friendly mistake:). I still remember the Ipecac, which now I realize was entirely the wrong remedy. 

I have to share my favorite St. Patty's day photo, which was taken by Hallie's husband Jerry several years ago in Key West. These girls have to be sorority sisters, don't you think? Tonka was in doggie heaven....


HALLIE EPHRON: Love that picture, Lucy! Tonka is a real show stopper. Chick magnet. And he basks so effortlessly.

I do not remember when my baby sister (Amy, 4 years younger) was brought home from the hospital. My mother had a baby nurse so it made very little impact on me. I do remember being left holding her on on the couch while my mother went to the bathroom. She rolled off.

Yes, I tortured her growing up. But not nearly as much as she tortured me. She refused to play the roles I assigned her -- baby to my mother, student to my teacher, slave to my queen.  Checkers, decks of cards, Scrabble pieces invariably ended up hurled to the floor with her refusing to pick them up.  But I've always been serenely secure in the knowledge that no matter how hard or how fast she pedals, I'll always be the older one.  Turns out she got the better end of that deal, too.


RHYS BOWEN: Am I the only one who doesn't have a sister? Not fair. I always wanted one but only had a brother seven years younger than me who was a little brat who scribbled with crayon over my homework (he's now an Episcopal minister so I guess he got better with age). And St Patrick's day was not celebrated at all in England. I'm feeling deprived all around. But I've had a wonderful group of women friends all my life--my college friends, with whom I still get together, my hiking friends who are my main therapists, and my mystery friends who turn work into fun. 

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Happy birthday, Barb! Like Rhys, I have no sisters. My mother was Scottish/Protestant and so she would tell me to wear orange on St. Patrick's Day and there were no treats. I always felt a bit deprived of the "Everyone is Irish" thing — but drank a lot of green beer in college to make up for it. Now, for my son, I'm making a green ombre cake. My husband just said, "What is ombre?" And I replied, "Many shades of green." And then he shot back: "50 Shades of Green — isn't that Irish porn?"

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Happy birthday, Barb!! 

No sisters, here, either, alas. But I've been lucky in sisters-in-law; my brother Steve's wife, Dorothy, my husband's sister, Tracy, my husband's brother Jason's wife, Julisa.  Adore them all. And then, of course, there are my Jungle Red sisters!  Raising a green beer to you--as long as I don't have to drink it! (Pic is from Thanksgiving, with Julisa Gary on the left and Tracy Wilson Burns on the right, lovely sises-in law!)

JULIA: Dear readers, I hope you'll join us in birthday wishes, St. Patty's Day reminiscences, and stories of sisters in the comments section!

                        Thanks for being such a great sister, Barb. Happy Birthday!