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Discerning Diner...with Elan Head
St. Paddy’s Day can be one of your favorites, too

It’s one of my very favorite holidays--that’s the first thing I thought of when I sat down to write about St. Patrick’s Day. But it sounded a little familiar. After all, don’t I say that about every holiday? A quick check of my files confirmed that I do. Passover, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas: they’re all favorites. I’m sure I can even think of some good things about Groundhog Day.

That said, I really do have a soft spot for St. Patrick’s Day, which is as close as it gets, for me, to an ethnic celebration.

I’m not wholly Irish, but I couldn’t tell you what I am besides. My eyes are green, and my mother’s maiden name is Lafferty. March 17 is my day to shine.

Naturally, it’s also my day to make corned beef and cabbage.

To be totally frank, corned beef and cabbage is not the cuisine I would have chosen for myself, had I been in a position to decide my heritage. But as your teenager will remind you, none of us asked to be born, did we? So we do the best with what we have.

In fact, you can do pretty well with corned beef and cabbage. I proved this most dramatically a few years ago when, in an effort to persuade my Jewish husband of St. Paddy’s Day’s virtues, I reinvented the traditional meal.

If I had thought of it in time, I would have corned my beef from scratch. As it was, I bought a pricey organic brand, boiled it carefully, and finished it in the oven with a brown sugar-mustard glaze (very good).

Instead of big boiled potatoes, I served tiny fingerlings, peeled and sautéed whole in butter and olive oil (delicious).

I sauteed carrots, too, and finished them off with a splash of Grand Marnier (superb). And I turned the conventional boiled cabbage into a cabbage gratin (who knew that cabbage could be so good?).

Yes, it was all mighty tasty, but when I assembled the plates, I realized to some dismay that my meal was more Gallic than Gaelic. So in subsequent observances I have strived for a simpler aesthetic, mindful that today’s “fingerling potato” meant, in a historical context, “not enough to eat.”

I do make one exception, and that is with the cabbage. Boiled cabbage is okay, but when you slice it thinly and cook it for hours, as the Italians do, it becomes something really sublime. It’s not fussy, but it tastes like it could be.

Here’s what you do: Wash a head of green cabbage and remove any blemished outer leaves. Carve big chunks of cabbage away from the core; discard the core and slice the remaining cabbage into fine shreds. Slice an onion and a few garlic cloves.

In a large pot, warm two tablespoons of olive oil, or more, and add the onion. Sauté the onion until soft, then add the garlic, and cook until both are just beginning to color.

Now add the cabbage, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon or two of wine vinegar. Give everything a good stir, cover the pot, and cook over very low heat for 90 minutes to two hours, stirring occasionally.

Add a spoonful of water if the cabbage starts to look dry. At the end of two hours, this “smothered” cabbage will be meltingly tender, smashing with corned beef or most anything else.

So that’s my advice if you’re eating in this St. Patrick’s Day. And while we’re at it, why don’t we take “Ulysses” off the shelf and spend a quiet evening with Joyce?

Irishmen of a different persuasion know that St. Patrick’s Day is a great time to be out and about, knocking back Guinness with friends and pinching any errant Erins with impunity.

In our own Kyrene Corridor, a fine place to do that is The Vine at Rural and Elliot, (480) 730-6313, famous for its St. Paddy’s Day celebrations. Enjoy yourself--responsibly, of course. And don’t forget that corned beef hash makes a great hangover breakfast.

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