March 17, 2025 - SAINT’S WEEK…
This is my favorite picture of my mom and myself at one of the famous St. Joseph tables we hosted at our house on East Ave.
The recipe!
I’ll be bringing in some miniature Saint Joseph breads on Saturday so if you want one stop by the store.
We started a wild Sunday afternoon by going to Steuben Brewery on the west side of Keuka Lake. We saw the "O’Henrie Bros" playing a bit of Irish music for St. Patrick’s Day. We have known Henrie Bros for 50 years and they are musical legends in the Finger Lakes. They were joined by their brother John, who was in town from Connecticut.
We met a friend who is doing some research for a project on the Henrie Brothers. They’re looking for any pictures or memorabilia. So, if anyone out there has any photographs over the 50 year span of the Henrie Brothers as a old-time string band, please contact the numbers given above for this important project.
To cap off the weekend, we had dinner and a little entertainment at the Burnt Rose Café. The special entertainment was our old friend Jared Engel with his new project….a silent movie featuring baseball and banjos. It is a hoot and now he’s in touch with Gavin Rice and the two of them are going to do some banjo and baseball stuff. Dinner, of course, was fantastic!
SAINT’S WEEK…
March 17th, 2025
Greetings,
Well, it is St. Patrick’s Day today but most people got their "Guinness on" over the weekend and are nursing headaches. We may make a little traditional, Irish fair for dinner tonight and play some music but I am much more attached to St. Joseph’s Day which is March 19th. St. Joe is the patron saint of Italy and is the patron saint of a happy death…whatever that means! I have my father‘s original recipe that he used when he made Saint Joseph style bread in the early days of the 50s and 60s at his Italian bakery. I am going to make some of these ornamental breads and bring them to the store on Saturday to hand out on a first come first serve basis. St. Joseph's Day is traditionally celebrated by Sicilian families as a way of giving back to the community and sharing seasonal food. We always held a table at the house on East Ave as a fund raiser for a local youth group.The breads are designed to reflect ideas about Saint Joseph’s life, including a staff, a lily, and for some reason, an artichoke. The tables always reflected the fare of springtime.
Julie and I had a Saturday off for the first time in a long time which gave us four straight days of being together what is which is quite unusual. As a result we have been getting in as much trouble as we can. We’ve been going to wine tastings, and beer tastings, and going on long drives and seeing music and just enjoying a life here in the Finger Lakes. It’s hard to pry us away, but we will be back in the store this weekend.
With peace,
John Bernunzio