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| Katie Reilly is in the house! |
You know me; I'm always looking for really good food, and traditional Irish fare is no different. I look for excellent, fresh ingredients that are written in a language that's easily understood. You know, "real food"
as my Mom would say. So a recent grocery store trip was no different than other day except for one special person: Mrs. Katie Reilly, and her infamous Irish Soda Bread.
The label on the back was my first tip off that I had indeed found something very special. There are no artificial ingredients added.
Like, none. Don't believe me? OK. See here for yourself:
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| Real ingredients, with no crap added into the mix. Wow! |
And so I put it in my basket, and went on my way...or so I thought.
At home, I found another surprise underneath the store's adhesive label that I carefully pulled off, so as to not tear the bag. It was the real story of an actual woman named Katie, her clan, and how much her food and her kitchen meant to them as a group.
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| Buried treasure! "Arrrhh!" |
It was an unbelievably good find, what with the plethora of fake brand names that flood store shelves nowadays; the openly desperate manifestation of many a rich corporation, in an industry that seeks legitimacy and the money that goes along with having the real thing.
But if living in an actual Irish/American town like Pearl River that also has strong Dutch, Huguenot, and Native American roots has reaffirmed anything for me, it's that you can't steal someone else's history for very long. You either have it or you don't, just like Mrs. Reilly.
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| Behold: the best soda bread I've ever had. |
If you still doubt the power of authenticity in a world chock full of posers, let me close it down for you, finally. It was so good that I bought one for my exceptionally finicky Mom. She ate three pieces of it in a row, and she usually has a cup of yogurt for her afternoon tea. That's right, my dear readers, it passed "The Mom Test". Put that in your pipe and smoke it, "Irishers". Enjoy!
Happy St. Patrick's Day 2015, to you and yours.
