Saturday 16 June 2007

Blooms Day


June 16th. Blooms Day.

June 16th is the day on which all the action in James Joyce's book, Ulysses, takes place. It follows the life of Leopold Bloom on June 16th, 1904. Ulysses is possibly the most intractable of all books to read (second only to 'Using Multivariate Statistics' by Tabachnick & Fidell). I have tried a few times without success to read it. The odd thing is I enjoy it, I just don't finish it.

However I will not pass up a good excuse for a dinner theme. My parents are coming to dinner today, it was my father's birthday a few days ago, and as the Kennedy's come from Ireland, admittedly some generations ago, Irish seemed as good a theme as any. It is also my late father in law's birthday and, while he has some tenuous links to Ireland, I have him, a former Church of Scotland minister, covered with some Two Churches shiraz.

The plan is some very green pea soup served with herb and cheese scones, a beef & Guinness casserole served with colcannon, a traditional Irish dish of potato and cabbage. The meal will wind up with some rhubarb, apple & ginger crumble and custard.

And we will start festivities with a glass or two of some home-made Damson port. Well, it is port in name, because it used port yeast, but it's character lends itself to an aperitif rather than to accompanying coffee.

Pretty bloomin' good, I reckon.
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6 comments:

  1. I'm sure Molly would say yes to this meal too! Hope it was wonderful.

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  2. That sounds soooo nice! Yum.

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  3. For Heaven's sake answer your door, Lee! I've been standing out here knocking forever! I came for dinner! I need a port to warm me up!

    I agree about Joyce's "Ulysses"...I've had a similar reaction to it to yours over the years.

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  4. But did you get to the end of 'Using multivariate statistics'?
    The meal sounds sublime.

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  5. Nice meal, Lee - but no Guinness??

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  6. Well, it didn't ALL end up in the casserole...

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