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Happy St. Patrick's Day

Willets Point Mar 14 2008 01:24 PM

Happy St. Patrick's Day too.

themetfairy Mar 14 2008 01:56 PM

="Willets Point"]Happy St. Patrick's Day too. I had planned on saving this for Monday, but since you jumped the gun -

Willets Point Mar 14 2008 02:13 PM

Hey it wasn't me who moved St. Patrick's Day, it was the Vatican.

AG/DC Mar 14 2008 02:18 PM

It begs the question: Are they the Vatican, or the Vatican't?

themetfairy Mar 14 2008 03:10 PM

Has Evacuation Day been moved as well?

Willets Point Mar 14 2008 03:11 PM

Evacuation Day is purely secular.

themetfairy Mar 14 2008 03:15 PM

Yes, but well-timed as a recovery day from St. Patrick's Day <g> [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_Day_%28Massachusetts%29]Evacuation Day, as described by Wikipedia[/url]

Willets Point Mar 14 2008 04:39 PM

Proposition 317 aims to make St. Patrick's Day an official federal holiday in the US. Yeah, it's really just an ad gimmick for Guinness, but I signed anyway. Our stuffy, corporate-minded country needs more holidays and we don't have any in March.

Nymr83 Mar 14 2008 04:41 PM

] Our stuffy, corporate-minded country needs more holidays and we don't have any in March. make Purim a national holiday. You'd get the added benefit of people not knowing when the hell it is and showing up for work.

Willets Point Mar 14 2008 04:43 PM

Nymr83 wrote: ] Our stuffy, corporate-minded country needs more holidays and we don't have any in March. make Purim a national holiday. You'd get the added benefit of people not knowing when the hell it is and showing up for work. Only if there are cameras to capture the people banging on their locked office doors so the rest of us can watch.

Benjamin Grimm Mar 14 2008 05:57 PM

Additional holidays wouldn't give (most of) us additional days off. Just fewer days of mail delivery.

metsmarathon Mar 14 2008 08:31 PM

but they're good for me!

metirish Mar 15 2008 07:43 AM

It's going to be the best St. Patricks day ever for me and my wife and son. Happy St. Patricks day to you all.

DocTee Mar 17 2008 11:07 AM

Bennachtai na feile Padraig May the blessings of Patrick be with you on this, his feast day.

metsguyinmichigan Mar 17 2008 12:15 PM

metirish wrote: It's going to be the best St. Patricks day ever for me and my wife and son. Happy St. Patricks day to you all. I bet it wil be! Hope he is recovering well.

MFS62 Mar 17 2008 12:19 PM

After today, I won't be able to find any Irish soda bread in any of my local stores for another 51 weeks. Rats! I like Irish soda bread. Later

Benjamin Grimm Mar 17 2008 12:47 PM

Get a recipe and make some yourself! I did that this weekend with takoyaki, a popular snack food that I had in Japan that just doesn't seem to be available in the United States. I tracked down a recipe, bought the necessary kitchen equipment and enjoyed an authentic-tasting treat!

MFS62 Mar 17 2008 12:54 PM

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Get a recipe and make some yourself! That thought had crossed my mind. Then reality set in and I remembered my prior attempts at baking anything other than apple pie. Later

sharpie Mar 17 2008 01:29 PM

My wife made the Martha Stewart soda bread recipe. It was allegedly very easy and certainly delicious. http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.fc77a0dbc44dd1611e3bf410b5900aa0/?vgnextoid=236456866a80f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Benjamin Grimm Mar 17 2008 01:38 PM

I would think that soda bread would be a lot easier to make than apple pie.

AG/DC Mar 17 2008 01:46 PM

As someone who makes them both, I'd say it's about 76% easier.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 17 2008 01:52 PM

="Benjamin Grimm"]Get a recipe and make some yourself! I did that this weekend with takoyaki, a popular snack food that I had in Japan that just doesn't seem to be available in the United States. I tracked down a recipe, bought the necessary kitchen equipment and enjoyed an authentic-tasting treat! Let's hear about takoyaki. Perhaps you can whip up a batch for the tailgate?

Benjamin Grimm Mar 17 2008 02:03 PM

From Wikipedia: ]Takoyaki (たこ焼き or 蛸焼, Takoyaki?) (literally fried or baked octopus) is a popular Japanese dumpling made of batter, diced octopus, tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger, konnyaku, and green onion, topped with okonomiyaki sauce, green laver (aonori), mayonnaise, and katsuobushi (fish shavings), originating from Osaka. Making takoyaki requires a takoyaki pan, a special frying pan made of cast iron with hemispherical molds. Although takoyaki can easily be made at home if the equipment is available, it is usually considered to be fast food and mostly sold on the streets. Frozen takoyaki are also sold, and there are restaurants in which customers can cook their own takoyaki at their tables. Takoyaki is especially popular in the Kansai region, but has risen in popularity in other parts of Japan. In the Kansai region, takoyaki is eaten as a side dish with a bowl of cooked rice. Elsewhere in Japan, it is eaten without rice as a snack food. I omitted the pickled ginger. (The takoyaki we had in Japan didn't have it.) And the toppings aren't all required either. (Just like you don't have to put mustard, sauerkraut, ketchup, onions, etc. on your hot dog.) We had ours with the okonomiyaki sauce, also known as tonkatsu sauce. (It's similar to Worcestershire sauce.) I was able to get the small octopus and the tonkatsu sauce, as well as the dashi soup mix to flavor the batter, at a local Asian grocery store. The takoyaki pan (and turning pick) I got from one of those sellers affiliated with Amazon.com. Takoyaki is sold in Japan in much the same way that hot dogs are sold here. You see it at street side stands, in shopping center food courts, and in parks. You don't usually see it on a menu when you sit down in a restaurant. It was very satisfying to replicate so accurately, in my American kitchen, a taste that we remembered from the other side of the world. Here's what it looks like in the pan: You fill the hemispheres with the batter and poke in the filling. When it solidifies a bit, you turn it over with the pick to get the other side cooked. When it's done you have a little ball of octopus fritter.

Willets Point Mar 17 2008 02:05 PM

Happy Evacuation Day! (Y'all are behind the ball on St. Patrick's Day).

themetfairy Mar 17 2008 02:06 PM

Soda bread is very easy to make. Mixing golden raisins with the regular raisins works nicely. One thing - don't settle for the 1% buttermilk. Using whole milk buttermilk makes a substantial difference in the finished product.

duan Mar 18 2008 06:05 PM i don't mean to be funny

but what sort of abomination is Soda Bread with raisins in it.

themetfairy Mar 18 2008 06:59 PM

It's the best kind of abomination that you could imagine - try it some time!

AG/DC Mar 18 2008 07:19 PM

It took soda bread to bring duan out of the high grass?

Frayed Knot Mar 18 2008 08:13 PM

I have a confession to make here -- I have no idea what soda bread is.

Valadius Mar 18 2008 10:08 PM

People get on me for liking raisin challah as much as I do. But hell, it's awesome.