Burns in the USA: Bringing a Scottish tradition to America
IT took a while for my Burns Supper to blossom into an overnight success. Thirteen years, to be exact. Up until then it was a weird little secret, known only to locals in the New Jersey resort town of Cape May (population 3000) I call home. Everything changed last January when our event hit the front page of a regional daily newspaper (“Great Scot” ran the ingenious headline), while another paper published a glowing piece, despite a most unpromising intro: “A Scottish tradition dedicated to a poet few Americans can recognize by name, that features music few Americans listen to and food most Americans find repulsive, may not seem like a natural fit for the sleepy beach town of Cape May.”