Subject: USAToday.com Blog
From: "Merilee:::Kern Communications" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:36:22 -0700

http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/2009/03/countdown-to-st.html 
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Countdown to St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is Tuesday. You may want to start celebrating this weekend, and many organizations and publications are standing by to guide your partying path.

The folks at Draft magazine, for example, have some suggestions for ways you can start St. Patrick's Day with a "breakfast of champions" by pairing one or more of a number of egg dishes with just the right beer. In it's March/April issue, the magazine offers such pairings as scrambled eggs with Schneider Aventinus, Hopf Weifser Bock or Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse.

FoodieView, a search engine for recipes, restaurants and other culinary resources, boasts having more than 22,000 Irish recipes, including potato soup, cabbage rolls and soda bread. The always helpful wikiHow has lots of information on how to celebrate loudly - with an impromptu party - or softly, renting a movie with an Irish theme, like The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. And if you're just looking for some good recipes, visit USA TODAY's Weight-Loss Challenge page.

For information about the life of St. Patrick, who died on March 17 in the fifth century, and the history of this holiday, visit History.com.

Photo of Irish soda bread from the Irish Food Board

-- By Sue Kelly, USA TODAY