Where is John Reynolds?

e were having a hard time catching up with John Reynolds. We tried phoning him for almost a week but only got the answering machine. We drove out to his house and found no one home except the dogs and horses. Finally, we got through to his wife, Sheila, and she told us that he would be home later. When we tried later, we were phoning from a call box, so there were a few seconds delay before the call went through. Unfortunately, he probably thought it was a crank call because he hung up.

Finally, we were able to reach him by phone. We made arrangements to meet him on Friday night at Planxty McGuire's Pub. When Friday night came, we walked up Hill Street to the pub. John was already there. He bought us each a drink and we sat down and had a nice visit with him.

We told him all about LittleShamrocks.com and that he was becoming well-known, as well as Drumgrania, where he lived. He got the biggest kick out of it. He told us that he is totally computer illiterate but he was going to have his son look it up for him. He thought that my idea for selling Irish food was great. He is a chef, had his own restaurant for years, and now is strictly in the catering business. I asked him if he would give me some of his recipes to put on the website. He agreed that he would and asked if we had a recipe for Boxtie. He wanted to get together with us again the following evening. He wanted to give us some Irish food to take back with us.

So, again at Planxty McGuire's, we met with John. His son had shown him the stories on LittleShamrocks.com, and he was quite impressed. He also thought that the store was very nice. He had forgotten his recipes but promised to send them to us. He gave us two pounds of rashers (bacon), black and white pudding (blood sausage), some boxtie (potato cakes) and some 'holy water' (I will leave you guessing about that).

I asked him if I could take a photo of him to include with this story. He said that he wasn't dressed for a photo having just been working with his horses and having on his scruffy clothes. Nevertheless, he let us take a photo and it came out really good, as you can see. He was going to cater a hunt on the next day, Sunday, which he invited us to attend; however, we were leaving Co. Leitrim in the morning.

John told us that he had purchased a small cottage, which had been in disrepair, next door to his house in Drumgrania. He had restored it, offering it to us to stay in on our next trip to Ireland. That was such a nice surprise and we are very grateful. We thanked him and said goodbye, until the next time.

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