Reminder!

If you will be in New York City on May 17th, come celebrate the launch of my first book I’ll Have What Cheese Having: A Book of Cheese Pairings Inspired by Romantic Comedies (and celebrate my birthday which is on the 18th 😁 )

And if you won’t be in town but still want to get in on the first printing, you can now pre-order a signed limited edition book that will be shipped to you this spring!

Something Tasty: A cheese pairing to try

Skellig

You have probably tried Kerrygold’s Irish butter- but have you tried their cheese??

If you are a fan of Prairie Breeze, you’ll probably enjoy Skellig. I’m assuming named for the Skellig Islands in Ireland, it is a bit sweeter than most of their aged cheddars, and still has a touch of that signature grassy note with plenty of crystals to go around.

I leaned into the sweetness and tried it with some biscoff-like crunchy biscuits and cherry preserves… it did not disappoint. The tartness from the cherries really made it.

If you would like to spend part of your St. Patrick’s Day learning about other Irish cheeses, I’ve got you covered.

Something True: A truth about myself

The Dublin Dance Festival

Here’s the truth.

It’s crunch time for the book, so I am borrowing this story from last year, with some tweaks.

I lived in Dublin the summer after my freshman year of college. I was 1 of 10 Americans studying and working at The Dublin Dance Festival.

I expected to learn a lot about different types of dance and performance art, but I wasn’t expecting to leave questioning what qualified as “art” in the first place.

Yes, we did learn some Irish step dancing, but I also saw a lot of things that made me question everything I’d ever learned about performance.

Especially as someone with a competition jazz and musical theatre dance background, I was SHOCKED when a headliner’s piece was taking an entire hour to stand up from a pile of feathers, and walk from one side of the stage to the other.

There was one French guy that just took the entire length of Every Breath You Take (I’ll Be Watching You) by The Police to make eye contact with everyone in the theatre. Some people laughed? Some cried? And he just responded to all of it in the moment.

I honestly still can’t tell if I think those pieces were brilliant or complete B.S.

…but I guess I’m still thinking about it 13 years later so…does it really matter if I think it’s good or bad?

It clearly made me think. So whatever it is, it wasn’t a waste of time.

Just a little reminder to you (and to me) that what others think about the things we make…kind of doesn’t matter at all?

Of course it does for silly things like our ego, and very real world things like funding, ticket sales, commissions, etc- especially for those of us trying to make a living from our art.

But at the end of the day, it is not the creative’s concern what people will do with what they make. It is just their responsibility to create it.

More on this next week after I hit a few deadlines. 😅 

Farm to Fable: How food shows up in storytelling 

Potato Chips in Luck of the Irish

The Luck of the Irish remains one of my favorite Disney Channel Original Movies.

It has everything:

• A very clear Michael Flatley- based character called Seamus McTiernan (The Saint of the Step)

• A 200 year-old grandfather named Reilly O’Reilly

• Questionable accents

• Gaelic sporting competitions

• Lots of potato products

• Prosthetics

I’m sold.

Reilly is founder of the Emerald Isle Potato Chip Company, and the following might might actually be the most (and only?) realistic part of this movie:

So many of the best American food companies come from immigrant families taking something well-known from their home and building an entire business around it. And sometimes it’s a struggle to get the second generation on board to carry out their new legacy (a conflict present in the movie…kind of).

There’s also some pretty funny corned beef and cabbage sabotage.

So give the movie a watch- I might try to have a rom-com break and watch it tomorrow- and have some Irish cheese and potato chips.

Until next time,

Anne-Marie

P.S. - Sunday Scaries

A terrifying AI image to help us all rest knowing AI bots could never replace a real human artist:

This week the prompt was “a leprechaun sitting on a pot of golden potato chips”

Enjoy your nightmares.

www.annemariepietersma.com