To celebrate Halloween, try chewing a thrupenny bit

I invited a friend tonight to an "Irish Halloween" dinner, and though his official excuse was being out of town, I'm not sure he'd have come if he'd been home and dying of hunger. "It is actually kind," he replied, "even if the two English words that scare me most are probably 'Irish' and 'Halloween,' and I've never even seen them in such proximity to one another."


I have also taken a few cheap shots at Irish cuisine in the weeks leading up to this dinner, hosted by my friend Iseult Fitzgerald, an Irish diplomat who seemed so worried about feeding guests Irish cooking that she nearly put together a Georgian menu instead.


Oddly, Halloween inspired some Irish national pride in Iseult, who not only insists the Irish invented the sweetest and spookiest of holidays, but she says there are traditional Irish dishes (not candy corn) cooked but once a year in October. No, it's not brown bread, though Iseult did bake a tasty loaf and served it with slices of smoked salmon. No, it's not beef stew, either, though I was happy to find that Iseult had filled her cast iron pot with red wine-stained onions, carrots, celery and meat.


Courtesy of the Irish pagans, the Halloween specialties we sampled were colcannon, a floury potato casserole with curly kale, and melted cheddar cheese; barmbrack, a raisin loaf flavored with cloves and allspice; and a sweet Irish crumble fruit pie.


Nothing sounds particularly crunchy, right? But be careful as you chew. In another Irish Halloween tradition (would it be so hard to simply dress up and trick-or-treat in Dublin?), the host hides coins and trinkets in the brown bread and colcannon. Your teeth are not the only thing at risk. Sure, a coin is good luck, a ring means you'll marry in a year and a piece of miraculous medal could win you a spot at a nunnery or seminary. But be careful not to spit up a pea, or you'll be doomed to a life of bachelorhood, or a piece of rag, a harbinger of poverty.

That's pretty heavy stuff from the people who brought us green beer, parades and kiss-me-I'm-Irish pins.

Christmas in August

I'm still not sure why my friends Susie and Andi hosted Christmas dinner in August (something about enjoying the holiday sans "the bother of capitalist appropriation"), or for that matter, why "dinner" commenced at 3 p.m. EST. I am sure that it was the most regal feast I've enjoyed since starting graduate school in D.C., where I've mainly subsisted on canned Goya products from the Panam Latin grocery on 14th Street NW.

There was Susie's pumpkin soup, hot, smooth and gingery, served with croutons and a glass of refreshingly cool, creamy, nutmeg-sprinkled eggnog.


There was pork tenderloin, peppercorned by the good people of Trader Joe's, sliced and served beside peas; mashed russet potatoes with roasted garlic, milk and Italian seasonings; and a robust vegetarian lasagna, constructed of home-roasted red peppers, stewed tomatoes, zucchini, sauteed baby bella mushrooms, spinach and fresh garlic, and basil grown on a windowsill in Columbia Heights.

Sadly, I only had time to pick up a baguette and some frosted cupcakes from the Whole Foods on P Street, indisputably lame contributions. Fortunately, Stephanie, another guest, was more ambitious. She rolled in with quinoa, the hippest grain around, mixed with kale, roasted shallots and halved cherry tomatoes, and seasoned with brown sugar because, she explained, "it's Christmas."




The mashed sweet potatoes side, fortified with eggs and gussied up with vanilla extract, butter, milk and (of course) brown sugar, and covered in chopped pecans, was plenty sweet. But there was dessert, too: gingerbread cookies (one was decapitated, but most wore handsome neckties) and pears, peeled and roasted by another guest, Sara.