St. Patrick’s Day and the urge to cook

The approach of St. Patrick’s Day fills me with an urge to cook Irish dishes—perhaps that Guiness stew I saw on the TODAY show this morning or maybe colcannon, which has always interested me. I saw a recipe today for colcannon made with kale, with the comment that you can substitute cabbage. Heresy! Colcannon is a dish of mashed tatties and cabbage; kale is the interloper, and I for one hope it’s days are numbered. Unless it’s very young and tiny leaves, I am not a kale fan—and I’m not sure even then.

Colcannon makes me think of kalpudding—best described as meatloaf with carmelized cabbage. It’s a Scandinavian dish, not Irish, but the recipe stares at me every time I look at my file of recipes I want to try. I doubt anyone here would try it. Sometimes I yearn for the days when my kids were all at home every night and were pretty much a captive audience for my cooking experiments. I need a new audience.

Mystery author Keenen Powell wrote a blog about the Irish breakfast she fixes for her family every year—it began with blood sausage. I’d forego that. I dutifully tried blood pudding when I was in Scotland, and while it was not objectionable, it wasn’t that good either. I asked our B&B host what the point was, and he opined it probably had to do with using every part of the animal. No, thanks.

But the rest of the breakfast sounded wonderful, if heavy enough to be a hearty supper: rasher (thick slice of bacon or ham, fried), fried new potatoes (skin on because that’s where the flavor is), scrambled eggs, sautéed tomatoes, and what we in Texas call northern or sweet beans. I could maybe get some in our family compound to eat the rasher, eggs, and potatoes, but they’d protest at the tomatoes and claim beans were not breakfast food. I may put a little lox in scrambled eggs and call it Irish breakfast.

I’ve invited some old and valued friends to join me tomorrow night. I wanted to fix them an Irish supper, but this is the wife’s first venture out as she recuperates from extensive surgery, so the man said he thought just wine with snacks. I’ll do a platter with smoked salmon, cream cheese, vegetables, and some baguette slices. Foiled again in my longing to cook Irish, but the salmon is a tip of the hat to Irish food.

St. Patrick’s Day is the birthday of my baby-child, the youngest of my four—note I didn’t say which birthday. It’s not a decade-changer but she has moved into that range where women get a little touchy about their age. I’ll cook a birthday dinner for her Sunday. She asked what I wanted to cook, but was scornful when I suggested corned beef and cabbage. “You know I don’t like either of those things!” I told her the real question was what she wanted and gave her several choices, and she chose Norwegian hamburgers, a recipe from my oldest child’s Norwegian mother-in-law. These are delicious, and we all love them and thank Torhild for introducing us to them, but it’s an odd choice for a half-Hispanic child born on St. Patrick’s Day.

Green beer, anyone?

The company of women

I like men—a lot. Not to be trite, but some of my best friends are men. And, yes, in the day I’ve loved some of them. But there’s something about the company of women. Something indefinably comforting. I’m not talking about gossip sessions or those heart-to-heart talks where you confide your deepest secrets and all of your problems to your best friend. No, just ordinary talk.

The Book Ladies met for breakfast this morning. I found myself with women talking about travel, books, and writing. To my right was a preservationist and librarian, and beyond her a bookseller who still works in semi-retirement at Barnes & Noble. A retired teacher and an author sat across the table.

One woman had recently been to Iceland, and someone else piped up that she’d been there years ago and longed to go back. The one who was just in Iceland is going to Australia soon—it will be spring there. The teacher just returned from Dublin. I’ve taken some memorable trips in my life—Scotland comes first to mind—but I’m pretty much an armchair traveler, and I enjoy the detailed accounts these ladies send home.

There was talk about writing and digitizing books and then a writer who has suddenly “broken out,” the phrase for one who has just found success and recognition for her books—broken out of the pack, as it were. One of this writer’s books apparently has to do with the torture of women. We all frowned—we won’t be reading that.

All this while enjoying the kind of breakfast I don’t often allow myself—egg, toast, hash browns. It’s a great way to start the day. One woman wrote me that she was unable to be there this morning but looked forward to talking to me next time about her recent re-visit to downtown Chicago. I have a hankering to return to Chicago and visit the new writers’ museum.

Came home, wrote my thousand words for the day, and spent the rest of the day culling recipes. I have always had what I called an appalling collection because whenever a recipe came near catching my fancy I clipped it and put it in a drawer which eventually overflowed. I went through it once before the move to the cottage, but I demonstrated to myself today that I kept a lot of recipes I’d never cook.

I discarded a recipe for spaghetti for twenty-five. My days of feeding such a crowd are over. I discarded recipes that called for full ovens, though I discovered last night that my toaster oven will easily accommodate two individual casserole dishes. But that’s a far cry from a standing rib roast. Others went in the recycle bin because they just didn’t suit my taste today or because I now cook better versions, but I kept some for sentimental reasons. A few in childish handwriting—Jamie carefully wrote out a recipe for a small chicken loaf, and Megan copied directions for Play-doh. There was the recipe a friend gave me for chicken enchiladas when I barely knew what an enchilada was—mushroom and cream of celery soups. Not quite authentic.

I pulled some to use soon, particularly that I thought Jacob and/or Christian would enjoy—red beans and ground beef, a sausage and cheese casserole, and others. I’ve said it before, but there are just too many good things out there to cook. Life is a feast.

Cooking and friends, the things that keep us grounded in the present and enable us to go about our lives while President Trump and Kim whoever-he-is rattle their sabers. A crazy world.

A non-event day

Here’s a touch of lightness for a non-event day. As I posted the other day, I finally, reluctantly got rid of Sophie’s chair which just didn’t fit in the cottage. Jordan’s friend (and mine), Chandry, had some of the men at her business pick it up. I asked if anyone was going to use it, and she said, “Yes, me. I’m going to put it in the cabana for the dogs.” So, here’s Lulu, sitting in Sophie’s chair (note on dirty it is). Shh. Don’t tell Soph. Without her chair, Sophie has taken to sleeping on my bed, which is okay with me Once I get in bed, she doesn’t stay long. Except she seems to sense the times I really want to go right to sleep, and then she’s desperate for affection, nuzzling me, squirming up close, persistently begging for affection Dogs, how can you help but love them?

Nice breakfast today with my Book Ladies group that meets monthly. They are all women whose lives have had to do with books—librarians, teachers, bookstore owners, a couple of authors. Most of us are retired now, but we still talk books…or politics…or families. It’s a loose group to say the least. I look forward to it in part because it’s the once-a-month time I allow myself potatoes for breakfast. Thanks to Carol Roark for faithfully hauling me to the Grill for these meetings. I will be so glad when I can drive again, but that’s still a bit away.

I always have a problem hearing at that crowded table—twelve or more women this morning. To compound my difficulties, I forgot my hearing aids. And found I could hear about as well without them as with them.

A couple of exciting things today, well—exciting for me. I got the revised cover for the novella, plus the editor’s comments and suggestions. Her structural suggestions were really helpful—scenes that left the reader hanging, an unsatisfactory conclusion, and the like. Introducing a guard dog and then not involving him in the story is like introducing a gun and never shooting it, she said. So now the dog is part of the action.

But I spent a lot of time today laboriously adding all those commas I left out. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge fan of the Oxford comma, but sometimes I forget even that one. Glad it was a novella and not a full-length novel. At this rate, I’m on track to publish in late June. Will send to the formatter as soon as I give it one more reading. Help me spread the word—another Kelly O’Connell Mystery on the way. Watch for it, please.

Blessings for a quiet time

When my neighbor, Susan, came in for happy hour tonight she said, "It's so quiet. Usually there's so much going on here." I told her Jacob would be here shortly and that would change...and sure enough it did. Sophie came in from the yard, Jordan and Jacob arrived, and suddenly everyone was talking at once, haggling over who was doing what for New Year's. Good gracious--we haven't even gotten through Christmas yet and they're planning New Year's. Of course, it all has to be planned around those football games, which neither Susan nor I care one whit about.
But basically, it was a quiet day, and I treasure those as we approach Christmas. So many people are rushed, harried and hurried in these last countdown days that I'm almost afraid to say I have it all done and I've been piddling. Emails, Facebook, updating my iPad's Kindle selections, culling through recipe magazines that piled up on my desk. I found so many recipes I want to try that we'll have to have a feast every weekend for weeks to come. But it's a pleasant feeling, and a part of me says that for those of us who celebrate Christmas this is the way it should be: quiet, contemplative, a time to ponder the wonder of the holiday and of God's great gift of love given to us. I'm enjoying it.
I did start the day off at an small but elegant breakfast party with a really innovative menu--a wonderful egg and Gruyere and prosciutto casserole, a distinctive broccoli and cauliflower salad with a hint of blue in the dressing, and some lightly pickled beets--I adore beets and made a pig of myself. My shoes weren't nearly the hit they were last night, but it was a different crowd, one where I knew some but not a lot of the guests. Still it added to my sense of peace and grace about the season.
Home for a nap, a quiet happy hour with Jay (until Susan finished vacuuming) and then Jordan and Jacob arrived. Jay and I have great political discussions--he a conservative and me a liberal but we both recognize logic so sometimes its sort of fun.
Now Jacob is on his iPad in the back room--he who won't sleep back there and insisted on light when he did is perfectly content to work on his iPad in the pitch dark. He's anxiously waiting for me to get off the computer. It's a bit disconcerting that he knows more than I do--yesterday morning he had to restore the sounds to my TV. Tonight he wants to play games so I asked the all-important question: are these games free? "juju, you pull them up on line. Of course they're free!"
Off to sit by the fire and read. I hope everyone also has a quiet and peaceful night.