Tonight we are having a few people over for the haggis. The haggis is premade and fully cooked so it only has to be gently brough up the temperature in a pot of water. Last year it was quite good, but somewhat surprising when pierced witgh the knife. It oozed out like highly seasoned lava and solidified into a kind of course pate'. It will be fine.

What kind of vegetable do you serve with a haggis? This year I have elected to go with buttered cabbage, boiled potatoes and bashed neeps. Seamus Muldoon has a dish, Colecannon, that's made with mashed potatoes and cabbage, but because the haggis is so like  oatmeal in consistancy I am going to boil the potatoes instead of mash them - for texture and visual appeal, you know. We are also having Bashed Neeps. The first I heard of Bashed Neeps was in a Patrick O'Brien book and I expected to be able to review the recipe in the companion book, "Lobscouse and Spotted Dog", but me copy is in South Carolina so that's out.

Bashed neeps are - essentially - mashed turnips treated much the same way as mashed potatoes. The turnips are diced, boiled for 15 minutes or so until tender and then mashed with butter and some other seasonigs... Cardamon has been suggested. I am unsure if the Scots would go for that, but we will let you know.

I have a bit o' single malt whiskey lyin' around, too, so the guests will each get a tint o' that.

The birthday poem, given to me this morning by one who has at times made his living wering kilts and dispensing whiskey as a "highlander", is in the style of Burns...

Upon a hill there stood a coo.
IF it's not there noo
It must have shifted

Well, I think it's funny......... 

I hope the piper gets here on time.