Lucky Foods To Eat While Drinking Beer At A St. Patrick's Day Party

An old joke about Wisconsin small towns is that across the street from every church is a bar. And when Wisconsinites celebrate St. Patrick's Day , we meet in the bar. Miraculously, we've transformed the feast day of Ireland's patron saint into a grand drinking party. The holiday has become a reason to drink copious amounts of good beer. On St. Patrick's Day, WI-Irish join Wisconsin-Germans, WI-Norwegians, WI-Swedes, WI-Mexicans, WI-you-name-the-nationality to raise beer mugs in toast to "The Luck Of The Irish". But unlike New Year's Day with its long list of lucky foods, St. Patrick's Day lucky foods may be any food that helps you wake up feeling reasonably okay on March 18th.
So which St. Patrick's Day lucky foods does the Wisconsin gourmet eat? What are the ultimate drinking foods? High-protein fatty foods and salty foods. Why? Ingestion of fat and protein slows digestion allowing the drinker to consume more beer before feeling ill. And a higher intake of salt helps the drinker retain water countering the alcohol's efforts to make him give it up. That hang-over headache is largely due to dehydration. The only difficulty is inducing the partier to eat these foods rather than filling up completely on beer. That's why the lucky foods are the gourmet foods. They taste even better than beer.
Here are some suggestions. The ultimate drinking food is nuts. High in salt, protein, and the-good-kind-of-fat, nuts top the list of lucky St. Patrick's Day foods. Plus, nuts are easy to serve and easy to eat, - no plates or utensils required. Second on the list is cheese. Cheese fills the belly with good nutrition, and in curd form is also easy to eat one-handed (the other hand being busy holding a beer mug). The traditional gourmet may choose pickled eggs to eat with his beer. Jars of pickled eggs adorn many of Great Britain's pubs, so a jar on your bar at home will add a touch of authenticity to your St. Patrick's Day party.
Since St. Patrick's Day has become a multi-ethnic celebration in the U.S., Wisconsin gourmets feel free to consume well-known drinking foods of other cultures. German Summer sausages are lucky because they too are high in protein and fat. Their delicious flavor entices the drinker to turn from the bar and toward the table.
Lastly, it's well-known that drinking beer often induces a craving for sweets. There's no better way to round-out the gourmet's feast of lucky foods than with decorative St. Patrick's Day cookies. With these scrumptious gourmet Wisconsin foods in your cupboard, you're ready for a grand St. Patrick's Day party!

National Ice Cream Day is July 19th! - New American Holiday

July 19th is National Ice Cream Day! Ronald Reagan designated the third Sunday in July to be National Ice Cream Day and encouraged Americans to honor this new American holiday by consuming copious quantities of ice cream. Whether or not dairy industry lobbyists had a hand in crafting this new American holiday is either an irrelevant issue or an example of genius. Ice cream has been a favorite American food since revolutionary times. George Washington stored blocks of winter's ice to make summer's ice cream. And today over 90% of all U.S. households eat ice cream fashioned into cones, bowls, parfait glasses, floats and even on sticks. Ice cream is one of the few desserts made for strolling in the park on a summer's night.
Vanilla remains the most favorite ice cream flavor, with chocolate a distant second. Wisconsinites favor blue moon ice cream. Exactly what that flavor is defies description, but it's good! Living in America's Dairyland makes Wisconsinites choosy about ice cream. We love extra-creamy, super-duper rich and delicious ice cream, (read in high-fat content). Walk around the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus during the summer and you're sure to see people happily enjoying Babcock Hall ice cream. Babcock Dairy is part of UW-Madison and creates the latest-greatest in ice cream innovations of taste. A rival to UW's Babcock Hall ice cream is Madison's Chocolate Shoppe ice cream. This ice cream too is extra-creamy and creative in flavors. Black licorice, dark chocolate, and Mackinac Island fudge are served up beside America's traditional favorites. So what's your favorite flavor? I bet you have one. I do, it just changes day to day. And this Sunday, on National Ice Cream Day, you can be sure I'll be showing my patriotism with a dish of ice cream made in Wisconsin.