St. Patrick

I went to the library in search of, among other things, a book or two about St. Patrick -- this was both in preparation for St. Patrick's Day, and also for S to read for his Grade 2 saints...

The requisite section of the stacks was very picked-over. But, there -- right in the middle of an otherwise bare shelf -- it was: Tomie de Paola's Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland, exactly what I had scoped out for S at the beginning of the school year, and about which I had promptly forgotten. Gratefully, I scooped it up, along with Petook: An Easter Story for T.


I offered to read the book to S, but he wanted to read it himself. For our MLB, we printed out a map of Ireland. S dictated his summary to me, and then recopied my sentences. (This was a compromise, since he would otherwise have refused to write anything.)

I thought he'd give me something about one or two of the legends associated with St. Patrick. Nope! What caught the attention of my little dog-lover was this: "Als er ans Boot kam, sind die Jagdhunde still geworden." (When he [St. Patrick] came to the boat, the hunting dogs became still.)

And, check out that border! It's green and orange, and S researched to learn that these two colors mixed together make brown. So, the middle line is brown. As far as he was concerned, he was just making a nice design... how's that for some unintentional form drawing?


And, to celebrate the day, we made this "Dark Irish Soda Bread". Of course, I substituted ingredients. :-) Instead of buttermilk, I used homemade yogurt. And, per the wishes of my bakers, we left out the caraway seeds. I thought the outcome was just so-so, and was disappointed that the loaf was so (relatively) small. For me, the recipe was on its way to the recycling bin. However, the bread got very positive reviews over dinner. So, I guess I'm keeping it...