Off-kilter This Burns Night? Burns Brunch, Bowls and Suppers...
Traditional Burns Suppers are on hold! Ordering in seems like a good idea, but... The Little Chartroom sold out of its gourmet Burns Night with Glenfiddich whisky pairing before my husband and I agreed we wanted to buy it!
Now, we are trying to decide how we want to celebrate Burns Night at home in our beautiful neo-classical, Georgian hose on Royal Terrace!
What Should We Eat?
I wrote a book about our Burns Night celebration while I was living in NY, "I'll Wad a Boodle! Burns Brunch, Bowls and Suppers." Our traditional Burns Night changed into lunches, snacks, original menus and an innovative Scottish restaurant favourite.
We used to order squid stuffed with haggis at The Albannach (now closed), a charming Scottish restaurant on Trafalgar Square. When we organized a Burns Night in our apartment in New York, we made squid stuffed with haggis to order as people arrived!
Building a Burns Night Centrepiece!
I'm looking forward to creating an homage to the bard in the lovely old wooden fireplace in our flat.
This is a new skill for me. I first tried making garlands this Christmas. They looked lovely and now, I'm happy to make other garlands for different occasions.
Our Christmas garlands were built up in small pieces from branches of a Christmas tree, pussy willows, holly bushes and baubles.
To honour the bard, we need garlands that represent Scotland.
I started to think about artificial heather bunches and searched for them online. It seems that artificial heather is scarce. I contemplated purple.
Browsing the garland aisle, I noticed amanita muscaria, the fairy-like red and white mushrooms.
I also found miniature bagpipes marked down in the post-Christmas sale.
The End Result!
The other parts of the fireplace are put together from upcycled Christmas decorations. The pièce de résistance, the portrait of Burns was ordered from ArtUK!
Leave me a comment letting me know what you think about my fireplaces!
Close Up of the Scottish Garlands
Here it is! The garlands have tartan bows with little birds, moss with delightful red mushrooms and artificial heather.