“Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.” – George Washington

It was in this spirit that, when confronted with a Boston sports bar menu offering a full Irish breakfast last Saturday, we committed to the only morally conscionable action for a true patriot: diving with reckless abandon into gigantic plates of eggs, potatoes, toast, bangers, blood pudding, white pudding, fried ham and bacon baked beans. While it was moral duty that impelled us toward the daunting and gross display of pork that confronted us, it was nothing short of sheer happiness that expelled the last vestiges of the previous night, which had been Irish indeed, from our minds and bodies.

We then proceeded straight to the next venue in our Celtic sojourn, the Harpoon Brewery. It turns out that beer is made exactly how we thought it was, dehydrated hop pellets taste like iodine and sorrow (though we can’t say the hobbity tour guide didn’t warn us), drinking as many four-ounce glasses of beer as you can in 25 minutes is less appealing than it sounds, and the Leviathan Imperial IPA is better than we expected. For a 20 minute walk from South Station and five dollars, this was a phenomenal experience. A revitalizing and uncomfortable nap on the MBTA primed us for another night of Gaelic revelry, although the shift in focus from beer and pig to rum and Yahtzee was a welcome one.

Flash forward: Eastside Marketplace, dusk. A half-eaten Olga’s pillow roll languishes in its wax paper chrysalis, perched suspiciously atop a rainbow cairn of produce. Four dislocated shoulders, a trip to Madeira and a Cuisinart pickup later, and we are back in the kitchen, horrifyingly and pathologically attempting to carpet-bomb our intestines yet again with an arsenal of gout-inducing missiles. While chicken livers spatter violently on the stove top, we wrestle with the Cuisinart, an ad hoc rolling pin (nee plastic-wrapped wine bottle) and our own ineptitude to deliver into the world a monumentally buttery pie crust, with which we tucked in a baking dish pregnant with a host of bright vegetables, savory chicken morsels, incognito pork sausage, and a difficult but delicious marriage of white wine, dairy and thyme. It was called chicken potpie, and disgustingly we ate the entire thing—but not before binging on a bucket’s worth of ludicrously decadent mousse, smooth-sweet, which we affectionately slathered on crostini and undaintily paired with tangy red pepper jelly. That our fingers are not now so fat as to prevent us from using the keyboard is a minor miracle, but we recommend you give it a try. At a price of no more than $10 and a fairly low degree of difficulty, this undeniably luxurious hors d’oeuvre will impress everyone you serve it to, just as long as you don’t tell the squeamish ones what it is before they taste it.

Alas, we have unfairly shunned the main event, the pie! Sweet leeks were the Bismarck of the dish, coaxing alliances between various vegetables and meats, housed under a roof patched with eyelets of butter, unevenly rolled, thank god, to produce varying levels of crispness and tooth. We still can’t believe we finished it, but as the pie cooled in front of us at the nexus of good friends and decent wine, it grabbed hold of our collective experience and we saluted the presidents in most fitting form.

Chicken Liver Mousse

Adapted from Pete Wells, The New York Times

1 pound chicken livers

1 sweet onion

2 shallots

4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon fresh thyme (2 if dried)

1 ½ ounces good cognac

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

½ pound butter

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1.    Clean the livers and trim of any sinews and green patches.

2.    Heat enough oil to coat the bottom of a large skillet; when it is very hot add the livers and cook to medium rare, about 2 minutes on each side. It is important that they brown, but not blacken—keep a keen nose.

3.    Transfer the livers and juices to bowl of Cuisinart; add thinly sliced onions, shallots, garlic and thyme to the pan and sweat on medium heat until translucent but not browned, about 15 minutes. Turn heat to high and deglaze pan with cognac and vinegar.

4.    Transfer to the Cuisinart, add chunked butter and blend until very smooth. Salt and pepper to taste. Chill in refrigerator for at least two hours. Serve in a nice bowl with toasts, crackers, or crudités. When storing, pour a thin layer of olive oil on top to prevent oxidation.

Addendum: This column was written for publication last week.  In light of recent events, we feel we must update it: “F*ck Jim Bunning.  Seriously.