Cecilia Mulligan’s Soda Bread

Greetings! I’m preparing for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow by listening to some U2, House of Pain, The Cranberries and the comedian Hal Roach, all while I bake Cecilia (my Gram) Mulligan’s famous Irish Soda Bread! This was a tradition for my Gram each year and she would cook them by the dozens and deliver them to the Elks Club where she and my Grandpa belonged. I have fond memories of eating this bread each year and I thought I’d share the recipe today with you!

I’ve talked about my Gram a bunch on this blog. At 90, she still has her grit, and she’s spunky, funny and she’ll tell you exactly how she feels even if she wasn’t asked! The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, haha! Case and point: just a few weeks ago after the Oscars, I called her and asked her what she thought of the show. “Didn’t you think Gaga was great?” is what she said. Gaga! Not Lady Gaga, just Gaga. Like they were on a nickname basis or something! Then she asks me if I’ve read 50 Shades of Grey and when I tell her that I’ve read all three, I thought she would lose it. “There’s three books?” she said. “Oh Niccola, please send them to me so I can see what I’m missing out on!” Hilarious! All kidding aside, she should be arriving that package this afternoon in the mail. I can’t wait to hear her thoughts on the books!!!!!

I’ll be calling her tomorrow morning for my yearly, “Top of the Morning to Ya” greeting from Gram, followed by my reply, “And the Rest of the day to Yourself!”

Honestly, I thought the books were written for a fifth grader. Sure the books were sexual and arousing but if you like words, and I don’t mean big words, I just mean good words, skip 50 Shades. I haven’t and probably won’t see the movie, because who are we kidding- the last movie I saw in the theatre was Black Swan– I kid you not! I did just finish one of the creepiest books I have ever read called What She Left Behind, the story of a woman sent to live in an asylum in the 1920’s after fighting with her father. This was not uncommon back then and women usually spent years in these places until they were through with their “episodes.” The conditions of the asylum are horrendous and the women are forced to take ice baths, sit on wooden benches for eight hours a day without moving and in some instances, they were chained to their beds or worse- given lobotomies because no one realized how unsafe they were then.

This book scared the crap out of me! It was thrilling and although one part of the book reads like a Young Adult novel, as the story progresses the writing gets better and more gripping. I recommend it if you like chilling stories- and some parts were hard to read! Currently, I’m reading A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway mainly because I read and loved The Paris Wife, a novel based around the time he wrote this, as well as many other books. I had it set in my mind that I disliked Hemingway for being the cocky, pompous, womanizing man that he was but now I’ve decided he was confused, sad and obviously desperate enough to take his own life.