Planning the Irish Fair, we formed several groups (Trinity College, Irish food, German/Irish news reports, Celtic fairy tales, dancing, singing...) and I belonged to the food group. Though we first had some problems deciding how to divide up the work, we soon came to a conclusion: Nina should make our "cookbook" including drawings, whereas the others should contribute typical Irish food to our Fair in order to offer all visitors a culinary insight into Ireland
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Therefore we planned to prepare muffins, sandwiches, chocolate cakes, scones and shortbread, not to mention drinks, especially the Irish Beer (Guinness, Kilkenny, and Harp Lager). I decided to make shortbread.

Thinking back to the evening before the Irish Fair, I recall standing in the kitchen and trying to bake shortbread for the first time in my life. The recipe seemed really simple, but nonetheless my mum was supplying a steady stream of advice, although she had in fact never tried it herself. As a result not much time passed before she began to get on my nerves. But her presence did not discourage me; neither did the sticky pastry, which fought against being put in the two cake pans. While placing them into the oven, I found a lot of questions going through my head: How would the shortbread taste? Wouldn't it be too sweet, or should I have put more sugar in it? But the pleasantly sweet smell a quarter of an hour later reassured me.

Then the next disaster: One of my pans of shortbread broke into pieces. For this reason I was able to taste it. How delicious it was! And I hope all the people eating it at the Irish Fair found it tasty as well!

Claudia Lönze