It is almost unheard of for Bairbre McCarthy to be home on a Saturday afternoon during the month of March. As a teacher of Irish culture and language and a master storyteller, McCarthy, who hails from County Clare in southern Ireland, is usually booked with speaking and performing engagements throughout the year, particularly this month.

"March is the month when I tell my family, "I'll see you in April," she laughed.

But a recent ferocious snowstorm allowed her a free afternoon, since her storytelling engagements were canceled because of bad weather. As snow piled up outside the window of her country home, McCarthy talked of her Irish heritage and how, since coming the United States nearly 20 years ago, she constantly has strived to preserve it.

McCarthy grew up with seven siblings on a horse farm 15 miles from the ocean. Her father's pastime was raising steeplechase racehorses, and all the children began riding at an early age. It was her lifelong love of horses that led McCarthy to the Saratoga area in 1980, when she became an exercise rider at the harness track and then a trainer after becoming licensed. In her early 20s at the time, McCarthy said she intended only to stay temporarily, but that was before meeting her future husband, Henry "Hank" Willems. He and the spectacular fall foliage, the likes of which she'd never seen before, turned out to be the equation that convinced her to make the Saratoga region her home.

"Much of the area reminds me of Ireland," she said, "especially the rolling hills and farmlands."

And though she admits to being taken with newfound culinary delights such as the spicy salsas of Mexican-American food, McCarthy still prepares some of her favorite dishes her mother made while she was growing up. Irish lamb stew, soda bread and strong Irish tea are some of the things she prepares most frequently for her family, but McCarthy remembers having difficulty duplicating the recipes when she first moved to this country.

"When we made soda bread in Ireland, we left the milk out overnight to get sour and curdle a bit," she remembered. "I tried that here, but the milk hadn't changed a bit the next morning. I think it would have kept a week like that!" And contrary to the venerable corned beef and cabbage myth, McCarthy said she never ate it until coming to America.

"We do eat boiled dinners often in Ireland, but we use a good cut of ham," she said. "What probably happened was the Irish who emigrated here probably could not find or afford that type of meat and used corned beef instead."

Because of the island's cool climate, McCarthy said, only root vegetables are grown there, and boiling became the cooking method of choice most likely because of the open hearths in the homes where hanging an iron pot over the fire was an easy and practical means of preparing meals. But boiling is not the only way the Irish cook. McCarthy noted that roasted beef and chicken, served with roasted vegetables, are also popular.

With Irish temperatures averaging only 60 degrees in the summertime, McCarthy said, growing vegetables like tomatoes and corn is impossible. The island's location, with a gulf stream that keeps rain from freezing, also means milder winters with only an occasional dusting of snow.

Although the recent blizzard left her housebound, McCarthy expressed unabashed delight at the snow's accumulation because it meant more skiing -- something she could never do in Ireland.

"Some of my family members visit me during the winter just so they can ski," she said.

But when the storm ends and the roads are clear again, McCarthy will resume her storytelling at area schools, libraries and festivals. Often, she is accompanied by Glens Falls resident and fiddler Frank Orsini, who plays background music while she tells stories.

McCarthy is also in demand as a language teacher and is teaching the language to her son Patrick, 11, and daughter Mary, 9, who speak it fluently when they visit Ireland every other summer. It's a language she says is slowly making a comeback in Ireland. McCarthy grew up in a household where English was spoken, but lessons at school were conducted in Irish, or Gaelic, as it's referred to in the United States.

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More articles by award-winning journalist, Stacey Morris, food editor and feature writer at The Post-Star who has also been published in trade publications and magazines, are featured on her site.