This is the menu I served for many years while living in our Delmar, NY home for 31 years. Eli is a beef lover, Erin loves seafood, and I love both so this was the perfect marriage to satisfy everyone. The seafood stuffed tenderloin of beef was the recipe a fellow English colleague, Rena Grebert, submitted for our SAI cookbook in 1981. As she described it correctly: "Stupendous! Tremendous! Expensive!" When I look at the menu now, I cannot believe I had that much energy. I cooked for a week!

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As an adult Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I ask, "What could be better than food, family and friends, and football?" Growing up I remember usually staying at home for Thanksgiving with my mom cooking the traditional meal. She made the stuffing the way my father liked it. It was his mother's recipe from Germany. I still make it that way today--mainly hamburger, sausage, and seasoning. It is more a comfort food than bread stuffing. My most memorable Thanksgiving was 1971.

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I have been so busy this past year that I have not had time to blog, but I did want to include my favorite menu for St. Patrick's Day dinner. I have missed sharing memories of my Irish adventures and promise to return to my reveries soon. For now let me provide my favorite items for a truly wonderful 17 March supper. These dishes happen to be my favorites, but please peruse all the items in the appetizer, soup, and dessert categories for you might find something more favorable to your palate.

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The only way to make great corned beef and cabbage is with a slow cooker. Forget the stove top. The first time I had it made this way was in a friend's home in Trim, County Meath. I thought I'd died and gone to Irish heaven. I remember the laughter and Irish wit, the aromas, the political arguing, the drinking, the peat fire aglow in the fireplace. So every St. Patrick's Day since I have made it this way and raise a glass of Guinness to my dear Irish friends. Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig!

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I create floral portraits for my family and friends. An art teacher over 20 years ago did one for my birthday. I treasure it still, and it still hangs on my bedroom wall. I select the recipient's favorite flower and then describe in words and phrases the character and memories of that person. They can be quite beautiful and quite poignant. Always very personal, the portrait creates an intimate picture of her personality and her life's moments. It is a very personal gift. Here is an example.

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I teach English at the local community college, and every year there is a children's costume party on campus in the student center. Last year I brought my granddaughter Claudia Paige and her BFF Caroline. The children enjoyed a variety of Halloween games and contests, candies, goodie bags, etc. The highlight was the Halloween dinner. This was the menu that everyone enjoyed. My personal favorite was the ripe olives stuffed with cheese. The black and orange made for a festive Halloween dish.

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If you are fortunate enough to have leftover corned beef from St. Patrick's Day dinner, and you do not want to take the time to make Reubens, this is the recipe for you. On a day trip to County Clare to see the Cliffs of Moher, we stopped for lunch at a really out-of-the-way pub outside of Ennis. And what a delightful meal we had. The corned beef was rich in flavor, the cheese melted perfectly, and the sauerkraut was especially tangy. The rye crackers and Irish butter made the dish perfect.

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The bases of these last two children friendly hors d'oeuvres are cherry tomatoes and radishes. You could subsititue mushrooms, flat pieces of cheese, or colossal pitted ripe olives. Again, I will include the adult recipes so you will have those as well and just substitute your children's or grandchildren's favorite toppings. Now on to that first meal on Irish soil. It left much to be desired. Even though I had my trusty traveler's guide to Ireland with me, I was too preoccupied for that.

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This traditional cajun three pot meal consists of fried catfish, hush puppies, and cajun cabbage with sausage. Besides the three recipes, this post will explore cajun ingredients. The 3 grains used in cajun cuisine and the Acadian food culture are corn, rice—long, medium, or short grain white and popcorn rice, and wheat. Rice proved to be a valuable commodity in early Acadiana. With an abundance of water and a hot, humid climate, rice could be grown practically anywhere in the region.

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This authentic cajun three pot meal consists of cajun meatloaf, dirty rice, and cajun maquechou--a cajun dish with corn as its basis. Cajun cuisine traditionally calls for a meat dish, a rice dish, and a vegetable dish--thus called the three pot meal. It is named for the French-speaking Acadian or Cajun immigrants deported by the British from Acadia in Canada to the Acadiana region of Louisiana. A rustic cuisine, it uses locally available ingredients, and preparation is kept simple.

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I am dedicating this post to my dear friend and college roommate Nancy. We were both English majors at a small private girl's school near Buffalo. What a time we had. I still sometimes outright belly laugh or shed a tear at the roller coaster life we experienced as college students. We literally grew up together. We both left before graduation. I stayed with the English regimen, but Nancy was smart and went into business. She was co-owner of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que® until last year.

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The base of these hors d'oeuvres is celery, and kids just love to cut the celery barquettes and top them will all their favorites. Again I will offer the recipe from the hors d'oeuvres cookbook by Eric Treuille and Victoria Blashford-Snell so you will have adult appetizers as well. When we got off the plane in Shannon, I handed our passports to the agent. He just waved us on to the customs agent. When he heard I was with my two children, he too let us pass without opening a single suitcase.

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The base of these hors d'oeuvres is cucumber. Kids love to cut out the cucumber rounds and top them by themselves. I will include the toppings as presented in the appetizer book I like, but you could top them with all your children's favorites: peanut butter, marshmallow, fruits, jams, cheese, Nutella®, hard boiled eggs, egg salad, chicken, olive, nuts, etc. The possibilites are as limitess as your children's imaginations. Have some fun in the kitchen this weekend with your kids or grandkids.

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It was 1983. I was teaching English at a residential facility for troubled girls placed by NYS courts. I loved my job. I loved my home. I loved my friends. Life was good except for a couple of things. I was watching the creativity of my children erode. Whereas they were once curious and imaginative not only in their play but in the essence of their personalities, now I was seeing 9 and 13-year olds watching the 20th rerun of The Brady Bunch. They were sponges simply soaking up pop culture.

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For those of you just beginning to read this blog, my children Erin and Eli and I lived in Ireland during the mid-eighties. We traveled through all of the British Isles and holidayed in the Canary Islands for Christmas and toured Israel and Egypt before finally returning home to New York State. Many, but not all, of these recipes are from restaurant menus during that time. I have been posting many hors d'oeuvres recipes because we had such an incredible variety during our Egyptian cruise.

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