'Irish Sweet Potatoes' in time for St. Patrick's Day

As Marie Pederson walks around her Millview Court neighborhood in Batavia with bags in hand, her neighbors know something sweet is coming their way.

Sure, Marie qualifies as a sweet person simply by her generous nature. But it's the "Irish Sweet Potatoes" in her bags that get recipients excited as St. Patrick's Day nears.

For lack of a better description, these "potatoes" are actually balls of what taste like cake frosting rolled in cinnamon. And Pederson puts in plenty of hours in her kitchen making this candy recipe, rolling the contents into balls and then in a bowl lined with cinnamon.

Then they go into the freezer before they can be delivered - and eaten by eager friends and their children.

Pederson and her late husband came to Batavia in 1987 from the Philadelphia suburbs, where she taught school at St. Laurence in Highland Park for 25 years.

"I got this recipe from one of the kid's mothers at the school," said Pederson, who currently works the area farmers markets for Hahn's Bakery in Geneva. "Her family was Irish and she knew I was also running a catering business on the side."

The rest is pretty much history. It's been a family favorite for years. "There is nothing redeeming in the recipe," Pederson said. "Everything in it is bad for you, but it tastes great. In other words, you wouldn't show this to your doctor."

Probably not, considering the recipe calls for sweet cream butter, powdered sugar, coconut, vanilla and cream cheese.

"It doesn't take long to make the mixture," said Pederson, who claims her KitchenAid mixer is the key to success. "The first one I had lasted 27 years, and no one should ever buy a cheap mixer."

The labor comes into play in rolling the mix into balls, because if it starts to stick to your fingers, you have to put the mix in the refrigerator and come back to it later. "It takes about five nights to do all of these," Pederson said, pointing to a few containers of the frozen treats. And that's a key thing to remember, she said. These treats can't sit out for a long time, or they get too soft and sticky.

When all of the rolling and freezing is done, her Batavia neighbors can count on a sweet twist to the St. Patrick's Day revelry.

All is right

It might have bordered on a crime to have St. Patrick's Day roll around without a McNally's bar and grill to go to in downtown St. Charles, right?

With McNally's and the Evergreen Pub & Grill, formerly Ray's Evergreen, in St. Charles both being back open for a few weeks now, everything just seems right in the world. Or at least with the St. Patrick's Day parade ready to roll through St. Charles Saturday.

That's what favorite bar and grill joints will do for a town - especially those with a long track record that equates to being icons for residents.

On that bar topic

In the past, plenty of rumblings took place among St. Charles residents about the reputation their city was getting regarding its night life.

Generally, there were too many fights, too many arrests and too many incidents of drunken buffoonery to feel good about any positive vibes an energetic night life can offer.

We should be just as quick to acknowledge the police are feeling better about things lately, as the Daily Herald recently reported. The police say bar owners have worked hard to cooperate in policing their customers and their grounds. Let's hope that holds true through the St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

Who doesn't enjoy an evening out for a few drinks, maybe a meal, or listening to live music or attending a show? St. Charles can offer it all within the walking distance of a couple of blocks.

It's hard to build that type of entertainment for residents. So it is critical that those who simply can't handle their liquor or, worse, don't know when to turn off the booze guzzling, not ruin the fun. It's a dangerous scenario if everyone around them tends to look the other way.

That's two close calls

OK, we'll call this strike two. It was the second time in about a four-month span when driving down Third Street in Geneva that a driver on Hamilton Street failed to stop at the stop signs on that street and barreled right through so very close to broadsiding me.

One other time a driver was at a full stop and started to take off as I approached, but did not get far enough to cause a problem.

It appears some drivers on Hamilton somehow have convinced themselves that it is a four-way stop at Third Street. Or worse, they think the drivers on Third have to stop, but they don't. Neither scenario is true. It's a two-way stop on Hamilton only.

My suggestion? Put those flashing red lights on the stop signs on Hamilton.

dheun@sbcglobal.net