Call me crazy, but oatmeal cookies have never had a spot on my favorite foods list. They're too sweet. I prefer my oats prepared in such a way that I can really taste the full nutty flavor. I even enjoy eating them by the dusty flaky mouth-gumming uncooked handful. That taste quirk may be a result of genetic memory. My father's father, his father, and many of the other male … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Oats:
The Original Comfort Food
irish food
Sláinte! Oats:
Sláinte: Summer Blessings
One of summer's finest gifts is its long hours of sunshine. This is especially true the farther one travels from the equator where a midwinter's night is so long that only a few hours of pale gray twilight feebly light the day. Halfway around the seasonal wheel, the sun blazes forth in the same locale for nearly a whole 24-hour period. This phenomenon has a very scientific … [Read more...] about Sláinte: Summer Blessings
Sláinte!: The World Is My (Irish) Oyster
By Edythe Preet
September/October 1995
Though Jonathan Swift is believed by many to have said, "He was a brave man who first dared to eat oysters," the quote predates Dublin's good doctor by about one hundred years, and was most likely first uttered by James I of England (1566-1625) at a royally excessive sixteenth century banquet. But the Irish had discovered the pleasure of eating oysters long before his majesty … [Read more...] about Sláinte!: The World Is My (Irish) Oyster
Sláinte! The Scottish Connection
By Edythe Preet
May/June 1995
Scattered along Northern Ireland's rugged coast, forty thousand hexagonal columns trail from a stretch of cliffs to the sea. The unique rock formation is known worldwide as The Giant's Causeway. It resulted millions of years ago when a volcanic eruption spewed molten basalt into the air. As seawater slowly cooled the red hot lava, it formed into vertical clusters of mostly … [Read more...] about Sláinte! The Scottish Connection
Sláinte! Brigid: Goddess and Saint
By Edythe Preet
January / February 1994
For over a thousand years, February 1 has been celebrated as St. Brigid's Day. Legend holds it was then that the saint placed her foot in a spring outside the village of Liscannor by the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Waters warmed; weather improved. Cows filled with milk; butter production expanded. To this day, pilgrims gather at Liscannor's well on Brigid's feast to … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Brigid: Goddess and Saint