I have a special place in my heart for St. Patrick's Day. We do not have any Irish in our family tree (though isn’t the saying that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s day?). But what I do have is the most remarkable Irish friend, Jean—who really set my life on the path it’s on just by meeting her.

I met Jean in the early 1990s; I was a college student in San Francisco and applied for a job at a nursery school nearby. Jean already worked there; she had recently graduated from Trinity College in Dublin, moved to the states with a friend and settled in San Francisco for a bit. We instantly hit it off. She was (and is) the type of friend you know will be part of your life forever. Warm, funny, sincere and with a heart of gold. And through her I met some of her friends who had settled over here as well.

A few years later I was heading out to celebrate a birthday from the circle of friends Jean introduced me to. We were all in our 20s, and when you’d meet up there was always someone new visiting from Ireland or the UK. And on that particular night, one of the visitors had just finished up his schooling in Scotland, and was seeing the states before going back home to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. His name was Tom Wright (do you see where this is going?).

And so because of my dear friend Jean introducing me to her dear Irish friends I met my husband-to-be. He never went back home. Within a week he had a found a flat, a car, a job and a wife (or at least a girlfriend at that time). He proposed the next year, and you won’t believe when—St. Patrick’s Day, 1996. So to me, there is something to be said about the luck of the Irish.

Tonight we’ll celebrate our engagement anniversary with corned beef and cabbage. But if you’d like to celebrate St. Patrick's day with a more unconventional all green meal, here is a link for an article I did for education.com:

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/green-recipes-saint-patrick-day/