I LOVE St. Pat's week (not just a day for me - I do a lot of stuff for the various groups in my life: church, family, work, etc.). We moved to a different floor in our office building yesterday, so I celebrated both St. Pat's and Pi/Pie day on Thursday. I made my Irish whiskey cake and then some chocolate-enrobed pretzel rods w/shamrock sprinkles for those who won't touch a drop of the good stuff. That went over quite well. I also met my daughter, Jennie, for lunch at the Amish market in Annapolis and picked up three lovely fruit pies (French Apple, Peach & Blueberry) for the rest of the office (the Iirsh cake is only enough for my staff and a couple of peers near my office). At the moment, three flat cut corned beef briskets are boiling away with some extra pickling spice in cheesecloth bundles. I will soon take them out, skim the water and put in the carrots, then the taters, and lastly, the cabbage. Tonight, a church group we are part of is having its monthloy meeting, so I am serving the main meal and others are bringing apps, desserts, etc. Two fo the briskets are for that and then the third I will shred a bit and add it to smashed taters, carrots and cabbage and fry it into a large pan of 'bubble & squeak' to bring to church fellowship lunch tomorrow. Lastly, as soon as I get home from church, I will cook up two more corned beefs for our family dinner and a family of dear friends are joining us. I am also going to have traditional brown bread, Irish butter, and Irish coffee cupcakes (adults) and mint chocolate cupcakes or brownies (kiddos). I ordered the Irish style wholemeal flour and really nice greaseproof cupcake liners from King Arthur Flour as well as some green shamrock sprinkles~ This is actually cutting back for me but glad I did as the packing for the office move about laid me out yesterday. My arthritis is much worse this past year and the bending and lifting reams of stuff to shred, etc. caught up with me despite my taking Aleve (my doctor permits it occasionally in limited amounts). The whole corned beef boiled dinner thing is more Irish-American than Irish anymore - though I did read an interesting article that said corned beef was more popular & known in Ireland back when massive amounts of beef (and pork for ham) was corned (brined) to make provisions fo rthe ships that sailed ot America, Australia, etc. - especially from the City of Cork - so the surrounding areas had many corned meat rpoducers - west county Cork is where my DONEGAN, HURLEY, SHEA, COUGHLIN, SCULLY. etc.ancestors hail from. So, a Happy & Blessed St. Pat's to all of you whether Irish or not!! ===== Kathleen Bowen Simons Falls Church, Virginia "I don't really care that they label me a Jesus freak - there ain't no disguising the truth." DC Talk & Newsboys, "Jesus Freak"