It’s the 2022 Red Carpet Menu for Oscar®!
For Belfast, it’s Bellmash!
We have the second side dish for our Mid-Century Dinner Party!
Kenneth Branagh is an incredible film maker. If you weren’t sure after seeing such films as Dunkirk, My Week with Marilyn, Tenet, etc., then Belfast will push you over into his camp. Maybe it’s the heart in the story. It’s semi-autobiographical and you can feel the intimate knowledge he must have to create such an incredible film.
Humanity always seems to be splitting groups into “them” and “us” with dire consequences if you are on the “wrong side”, depending on who you talk to. In this case, it’s the Protestants vs. the Catholics. This was a widely known and bloody situation in Ireland for many years.
We get the experiences and perspective of a 9-year old boy in a family caught in the middle of a tense area as the menace grows between the factions. You can feel it. And in it, you feel the warmth of the family, the fear in the “should we stay/should we go” decision looming, and the innocence lost in the 
children exposed to such hateful behavior, ironically over relatively similar religions that each have the same peace-loving “hippie” at their core.
And so I saw fighting in the streets… MASH ups. Ireland… potatoes. Yeah… I went with it. Mashed potatoes but with a bright, fresh perspective, which is what each side needed. I know, stereotypical but when it’s something this delicious, I think I’ll get a pass.
The combo of adding garlic and yellow bell pepper to these creamy Yukon Gold potatoes, gives them such a delightful flavor. The pepper adds such a bright note. And the Irish butter does a wonderful job of giving that silky, buttery flavor I expect in my mash!
Things being mashed is often not a good thing… unless it’s a potato. Embrace the mash and give it this scrumptious twist. Serve it to two warring factions and it just might be what brings them together! Ha!
Happy Oscars!
Annette
