Skipper

She's a dory, not a taxi.

Where do you want to go.

Come in. Pull up a chair.

Them days you sent a youngster up the road to say there was a game on. Now you send the code, and if a chair's still empty when you deal, one of the regulars takes it.

Well, Sunday after Mass we'd walk it. Start at the gate and go down, and every house along here I'll tell you who's in it.

Them days the garden party was the whole summer. Here's what's on the go now, and when.

Well, Sunday the pot was on before Mass and the smell of it met you at the gate. Here's what was in it, and how it's done.

Cold plate

The cold table: potato salad, beet salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw and cold meat, all on the one plate.

Feeds twelve · An afternoon of making ahead, then it keeps cold

What you need

6 cups plain mashed potato
1 cup salad dressing
1 cup pickled beets, finely diced
4 tbsp pickled beet juice
6 cups cooked potato, diced
1/3 cup plain yellow mustard
1 large apple, diced
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
6 cups cooked macaroni
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
4 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 small carrot, grated
4 cups cabbage, shredded
1 cup carrot, grated
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
3 cups sweet corn
1 cup pineapple, diced
salt and coarse black pepper

How it's done

1. For the coleslaw, mix salad dressing, oil, sugar, vinegar and salt, let it stand five minutes, then toss it with the shredded cabbage and grated carrot. Chill.
2. For the beet salad, mix mashed potato with salad dressing and enough beet juice to colour it, then fold in the diced beets.
3. For the mustard potato salad, mix mashed potato, salad dressing and yellow mustard.
4. For the apple-and-egg potato salad, mix diced cooked potato, salad dressing, diced apple, chopped egg, salt and pepper.
5. For the macaroni salad, mix cooked and cooled macaroni with salad dressing, grated carrot, relish, chopped egg and pepper.
6. For the corn salad, blanch the corn two or three minutes, drain and cool, then toss with pineapple, salad dressing and seasoning.
7. Chill everything well and build the plates with cold meat and a roll just before serving.

Where to get a feed

Any hall gathering that is not a Jiggs dinner — a wedding, an anniversary, a graduation, a funeral lunch.

Where that comes from

Them days the hall had a dance Saturday and the kitchen had music the rest of the week. It's still playing. Come in and listen.

He said, you know the one about the light on the water. I said, I do. That's a story, mind, and I'll tell you which parts.

No, I said, that's not the house. It was down just below there. Go back up the road.

Back up the road