Irish-American Heritage Month

A few weeks ago, I learned that March is Irish-American Heritage Month. 

It's safe to say that we've been celebrating our Irish heritage every March for quite some time.

Dixon - like so many other kids in America, I'm sure - has four grandparents who are each at least one-quarter Irish.

The importance of being Irish - what it means - was instilled in me at a young age. The same is true for Cooper. So the same will be true for Dixon.

This year, our celebrating began a week before St. Patrick's Day, with our annual Fake St. Patrick's Day party at Ryan's Daughter, followed by the Baltimore St. Patrick' Day Parade.

Fast-forward one green-wearing week and this is what we did:

A very small, very kid-oriented get-together chez Pollard. With food. So, so much food.

Corned beef (that I cooked) sliced for sandwiches (with fontina and sauteed or smoked onions, all on Atwater's Irish brown bread). Flank steak sandwiches for non-corned beef eaters. Alicia's cabbage noodles. Grilled oysters with hot sauce butter. Soda bread. Radishes. Green-topped mac and cheese (I used a whole bottle of green food coloring on those bread crumbs). Smoked salmon (some of Cooper's best work yet). Jen's reuben dip. Alicia's shamrock cupcakes.

Beer.

So festive. And all of that happened before it St. Patrick's Day even officially arrived.