Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Evening update: here's the dinner: corned beef, cabbage (braised,
not boiled in the cooking water), and some pickled peppers
and carrots.

 For the first time in ages, I decided to make corned beef and cabbage for Saint Patrick's Day. I'll be simmering the corned beef much of the afternoon, and I'm looking forward to having it for dinner.

Since it's Saint Patrick's Day, I was thinking about Irish food. Yes, there is corned beef in Ireland, but now there's also a very exciting range of other foods and quite a wonderful twenty-first century cuisine. Without any details, I present here some images of delicious things we've tried in Ireland, especially fish and oysters:

Plaice with little potatoes, snow peas, and other vegetables.

Lemon Tart

Fish & Chips.

Thinking of Ireland, I feel one should not forget the worst phase of Irish history: the potato famine of the nineteenth century. In Dublin in 1997, a very moving memorial to the Irish famine victims was created by sculptor Rowan Gillespie. Two photos of this collection of statues:

Galway, Ireland, a few hours ago: the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Photo by my brother, with whom we also ate all those meals!