Do you feel LUCKY?

Use the code LUCKY to extend the 30% off promotion. Chloe + Isabel is giving you an extra couple of days (until Saturday, March 17th at midnight PT) to save 30% on everything in my Boutique. 

Additionally, I am hosting a Pop Up today and will be giving away $300 worth of jewelry if I collect 2 more orders and $286 in sales. Spread the word and I'll give you credit for the referral. Place an order for another chance to win! 

Shop www.gabby-candi.com to transfer your Wish List to your cart and check out. Don't forget to insert the code LUCKY to see your savings. As always, you'll earn 15% back on every purchase as a Passport Rewards member - so you can shop now and save later.

Spend $100 and you will also earn FREE shipping!!

Stone Walls for Miles

I may or may not spend a little time each March brushing up on my Irish history. I'm a busy girl, so I don't have time for complicated words and tons of information. So yes, I get my information from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Irish History and Culture. It's like the perfect Cliff's Notes for facts on Ireland.

Every year I'm surprised at the little tidbits of information found within these hallowed pages. Here is this year's "ah ha" moment for your enjoyment.

I'm sure you're familiar with the thousands of photos showing these beautiful stone walls. Miles and miles of walls that seemingly lead to nowhere! These were, in fact, a public works project developed by the English government to put the famine and eviction victims to work.  In March of 1847, during the height of the Potato Famine, as many as 728,000 were put to work, building stone fences with no purpose and roads that led to nowhere. Putting starving men to work with hard labor in the bitter cold was inhumane, not to mention impractical. Yet they scrambled to do the work in exchange for one meal a day for a family of six! In the end, it only delayed the inevitable and millions of Irish died or were forced to leave on the famine ships within the following years.

Interestingly enough, it has the landmarks of our own New Deal, implemented by Roosevelt following our Great Depression. Thankfully, ours turned out a bit better.

When I do travel to Ireland, I'm going to look upon those walls much like I do our own National Monuments and highways. Touch a stone and shed a tear for the men who labored in troubled times.

Might still be buried in the yard

I have a love-hate relationship with Irish Soda Bread. First attempt may be still buried in the yard at our old house, potentially being mistaken for a rock. After many attempts to cut it, I dropped it off our back deck in frustration. 

My good friend, Mary Shriane, teaches classes on soda bread annually. Dozens gather to take her class just a few short weeks before the Soda Bread Contest at T.S. McHugh's, happening this weekend. She makes it look so simple, and thankfully, I've gotten better at it! I still have yet to win anything over the past 15 years making bread, but I am also competing against women who were taught at their grandma's knee over a turf fire in the motherland. 

Give it a try!

4 cups flour  (apparently best use GOOD and FRESH bread flour)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda  (another mess up of mine - make sure it's fresh)

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups sour milk or buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350, sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Scooping up handfuls of the mixture, allow it to drop into the bowl. This action aerates the flour. Add enough of the milk to form a soft dough. Working quickly, knead the dough lightly. (Too much kneading will produce the Irish call "hard as the hobs o'hell.) 

Form a round loaf about the size of your fist. Place it on a baking sheet which has been lightly floured and score a cross on the top of the loaf with a knife that has been dipped in flour. Immediately bake the loaf on the top rack of the preheated oven for 30-45 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow when you rap it with your knuckles. 

These directions are just about as crazy as my mother-in-laws addressing Christmas cards to her old neighbors back home ... 

Mrs. Frances O'Leary

Widow of the Baker O'Leary

2 houses down from Mrs. Donnelly's house with the big stone in the yard

Athlone, Co. Westmeath

Ireland.

Good luck!