16 March 2006

The Irish Really Are Crazy

Both the spouse and I have Irish roots. The Vances come from Belfast, and the McDarbys came from County Clare. I don't let that bother me at all, but Barbara gets a big bee in her bonnet every year about March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. This year, she got the urge to corn a beef, so we could have corned beef and cabbage to celebrate. Now, if there is commercially available corned beef in CH, I am not aware of it and likely wouldn't pay the price they would ask for it. So, for some days now, we have had a piece of beef under a solution in a dish in the refrigerator "corning". In the process of searching the internet for instruction on corning, we did learn something about it as a preservation method.

Still, I don't think that our kitchen is going to become a corning center anytime soon. I think the Swiss have had some education too. When Barbara went to a drug store to buy some Saltpeter (potassium nitrate), she got queried on what she was going to do with it. No surprise since it is also an ingredient of gun powder. I suppose that she doesn't fit the profile of a terrorist (little that they know) because she did get some, and it along with salt and other ingredients are perking away on that beef for the third day. Hope it doesn't blow up!

Irish soda bread has been made, and cabbage and potatoes are on hand. I just bought a bottle of Irish Whiskey, and sometime today, we will dive into a St. Patrick's Day feast interspersed with shots of the Irish Dew and some Guiness Stout. Think our house won't sleep well this night?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ah! Now we know where all the blarney comes from.