We are the Champ-ions

What I am working on right now:

Darina Allen's Champ

This is not a book or an album, it's a recipe. My family is having our annual St. Patrick's Day to-do tonight and I volunteered to make Champ. It's really just fancy shmancy mashed potatoes, but a very traditional Irish dish. The scallions are chopped. The potatoes are boiling. The milk is ready to be warmed.

The woman who wrote the recipe uses some fabulous lingo in it. She says to put "knobs" of butter in a well on the top. The knobs are all prepared. But my favorite item she instructs is that you are to boil the potatoes with their jackets on. I love the idea of potatoes in jackets. In fact, I really like personification of inanimate objects. Seriously. Ask me about it sometime. It's pretty much always funny to me.

So, The Champ is happening. And it's going to be really, really good. Along with all the other tasty items being prepared. And this way we can make St. Patty's last through the actual day, March 17. But we celebrate today in order to not conflict with Holy Week, which starts on Monday. This issue hasn't come up in decades, but we're finding a way to make it work. Little Irish Catholic trivia for you.