Love the Irish!

I have always had a thing for the Irish, even though my Scottish grandmother always told us nothing was worse than the Irish, especially the Irish Catholics. Everyone needs to feel superior to somebody, I guess. I never understood her prejudice (although undoubtedly Harry would, believing that the English get the blame and that the Irish, who started the whole thing back in the eighth century, are sore losers) and instead fell in love with Irish music, Irish dancing, Irish beer, and the uncrushable Irish spirit. I even had our condo painted mostly green.

I taught with a lovely young Irish woman, Sheila, years back and we use to team up and try to make St. Patrick's Day fun for our inner-city first graders. On March 16th, I had the kids make little green ladders which we hung from the ceiling. I told these true believers that if we were lucky, we might catch a leprechaun on one of the ladders overnight. They would leave class hoping to come to school the next day and see a real leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day.

After school I sprinkled the ladders with chalk dust and the next day I told the kids leprechauns had visited our classroom the previous night. "How did I know that?" the kids would ask? Well, just look at the fairy dust on the ladders, I told them. The leprechauns always have fairy dust on the bottom of their boots. They would nod in understanding. Yep, they must have been here last night, but they got away. Sheila, who had taken Irish dance lessons as a child, would get on her kilt and dancing shoes and within minutes had all the kids up and dancing to Irish music. Our classroom was mostly kids of African American and Indian descent, but on St. Patrick's Day, we were all Irish.

For the last four decades I have dutifully cooked corned beef and cabbage the week of St. Patrick's Day. I would buy the brisket already pickled ready to cook and boil it up with potatoes and cabbage. I never liked it all that much, but everybody had to share my masochism and the corned beef sandwiches made from the leftovers were always great. Well, move over boring corned beef and cabbage, Martha Stewart has arrived!!!

Last month, while at the hairdresser's, I had a long wait for the foils to do their work and I began going through the large pile of magazines heaped on the table next to me. Martha Stewart Living Magazine has always been one of my favorites to look through, although I don't buy the magazine because I never get around to cooking anything from it; nor have I ever made any of her nifty craft projects. Well, there was the March Martha and I had read all the People and OK magazines so I began to page through. I found what looked like a very creative and interesting set of recipes for St. Patrick's Day written by television cook Lucinda Scala, from the Hallmark channel. I vowed to try the recipes and casually ripped the recipe out of the magazine, hoping no-one noticed.

In Scala's recipe for corned beef there is no boiling involved. You roast the brisket in the oven for three hours on low heat. It floats gently in orange juice and beer (I, of course, used Guinness) surrounded by onions and fresh beets. You can even make your own spice paste, but the list of ingredients is a mile long, so I skipped that part and bought the brisket pre-pasted. As a side dish you serve cabbage and carrots also simmered in beer and orange juice. Top this all off with what she calls Irish Apple Mash: boiled potatoes with a little cooked apple thrown in along with nutmeg and butter. This woman made my week. Never again boring boiled brisket! It was fantastic, the best Irish meal I have had in 40 years. No, actually in Cabo, my Irish friend, Liz, made me Irish pancakes that were right up there too.

Lucinda Scala also writes a blog at madhungry.com. I think I may become one of her followers. Now I just need to get that Irish pancake recipe from Liz.

*It will be a year ago on St. Patrick's Day that Harry took his terrible fall into the pit in Cabo. I like to credit the leprechauns with saving his life, though Harry thinks they tripped him in the first place. He obviously didn't notice the fairy dust I saw on his shoulders after the accident. I love the Irish!