50 Shades of Delicious: 2 Chewsy for the Catwalk

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We've been celebrating this Irish holiday all weekend.  St. Pat was the most well known patron saint in Ireland and given credit for championing Christianity in Ireland.  He was born in Roman England and lived in the fourth century.   Not much is known about Pat, but legend has it that he taught Irishmen about the Holy Trinity by using a shamrock.  Also, the original color associated with St. Patrick was blue, but it morphed into green over the years perhaps to match the shamrock. St. Patrick's Day is an official holiday in Ireland and an unofficial one everywhere else.  Guinness beer coined a marketing campaign years back stating, "Everyone's Irish on March 17th."  Indeed some interesting traditions have been created outside of Ireland for example drinking green beer, pinching someone if they don't wear green, a lot of merriment and raising of glasses and participating in parades.  The city of Chicago even dyes ...

This past week was Thanksgiving and we hosted the first annual Friendsgiving.  It was Ro's first ever year as a hostess.  As the plans started being made for the event and the work of shopping, prepping and cleaning began she doubted the logic of why hosting was fun.  Gone were her days of sleeping in on the holiday until 10 a.m., going to the store (day of) to buy some crackers and cheese and then driving to someone else's house. We had a total of ten friends and family gathered around our table this year.  Ages spanning from seventy to teenager.  Oh and there were two dogs (a Husky and Australian Shepard doodle, who actually did bark in an Australian accent).  Both of the four legged guests mostly enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen waiting for any morsel to fall. FloJo is a recovering perfectionist and enjoys preparing a menu full of traditional classics as well as new dishes never tried before.  The challenge for next year has already ...