mmm...haggis

Last Saturday the Captain and I went to an annual Burns dinner at the local Scotsman's house in Skamokawa, Washington. For those of you who don't know what a Burns dinner is, it's basically an annual tribute to Scotland's poet, Robert Burns. (If you're dying to know even more, google it - they do this all over the world). It involves eating Scottish food and reading Burns' poetry. It is actually a lot more fun than it sounds.

At this particular party, guys wore their kilts and everybody drank lots of scotch whisky and red wine. Then the highlight of the evening - the haggis - was marched in with bagpipes and a poem was read that praised the virtue of haggis and made fun of French people and their food, which Scots apparently don't regard as very manly. Then we actually ate the haggis (I mostly mashed mine into potatoes to hide it) with mashed turnips ("neeps") and mashed potatoes ("tatties"). Then the Captain recited a poem praising the lassies present, and we drank more whiskey and wine. Lots of fun, despite having to eat something that was scraped out of the bowels of various farm animals. You should try it.