Celebrating Halloween how it all began - the Irish way!

Did you know that Halloween as we know it stems from the early Celtic celebration of Samhain?  Samhain was a Celtic New Year of sorts, and it was a time when the revelers believed that the border between our world and the "underworld" was especially thin...hence all the goblins and ghouls.  Read more about the history of Halloween here.

You can inject a bit of traditional flavor into your Halloween celebration with these classic items:

Colcannon is a mashed potato dish made with cabbage (or kale) and ham (or bacon, for modern palates).

Barmbrack is a sweet bread often toasted and served with tea. Bakers would hide various objects (a ring, for instance) into the bread as a fortune-telling game of sorts.

Instead of pumpkins, carve scary faces into turnips.  See examples here, here, and here.