Shamrocks, and Corned Beef, and Leprechauns, Oh My!

Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you had a fun celebration and didn’t over-imbibe in the green beer. Because St. Pat’s fell on a Monday, we took the opportunity to celebrate all weekend long.

Starting Friday night with dinner at Legends pub on campus and attending the Bengal Bouts boxing matches afterward. Talk about your Fightin’ Irish! Most of these ND students have never been in a fight before they joined the Boxing Club, but they train all year for the Bengal Bouts and box their hearts out till they can barely lift their gloves in the third round. If you’ve never had the experience, I recommend you check it out next year. It really is fun to watch (and I hate professional boxing), and all the proceeds go to benefit the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh (as do all the profits from Ave Maria Press).

Saturday I cleaned the house. A fine Irish tradition.

Sunday Bill and Erin came over for out traditional St. Pat’s supper; Killian’s Irish Red Lager, corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, soda bread and banana green pie. I found a recipe to make corned beef from scratch on marthastewart.com but it has to soak in brine for 3-6 days so I’ll have to try that another time. I also baked shamrock cookies and extra soda bread for my co-workers at Ave.

On St. Patrick’s Day I brought in my Irish-themed baking for all of Ave to enjoy. Susana Kelly (Irish!) and I went to the Fiddler’s Hearth pub downtown for lunch, but it was too crowded to even get past the door. There was a Holy Cross priest inside blessing the food, and the beer, and the people. And even though we prayed to St. Patrick to intercede for an empty seat, there were none, so we walked a block to a (usually crowded) Thai restaurant and got right in. I still wanted to capture the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, so I ordered green curry and green tea. Then on the way back to work we drove thru McDonald’s and got shamrock shakes. Not the most traditional of celebrations, but tasty and fun nonetheless!