Tail End of Winter

Well, I believe I've covered my neighbors here, haven't I? They're an odd assortment with an unfortunate habit of turning up in the same place I am, and the funny thing is, being unfriendly doesn't do a thing to discourage them. They include people who come and go at strange hours; talkative folk who have rap sessions in the parking lot in the middle of the night (sometimes when it's freezing); pseudo punks (who wouldn't know rock music if it rolled them into a muddy ditch); and an amazingly heavy-footed upstairs socialite who always seems to have it "all going on." She now seems to be styling herself a special agent, since she was wearing a trench coat when last seen.

Personally, I spend my days cooking and cleaning when I'm not job hunting, which makes me sound more boring than I am. I am actually a well-rounded person, decent conversationalist, and good human being, but I'd rather not cast my pearls before swine. This is not out of snobbery but rather out of a sense of self-preservation; there's no telling what you might step into if you so much as put your nose one-eighth of an inch in the wrong direction around here. And it used to seem like such a nice neighborhood!

Speaking of cooking, I don't think I mentioned the brownies I made last week, but they were really dee-lish, even though I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I had a couple of egg whites that I needed to use up, and the recipe calls for three, so I added a whole egg for the third one. They rose a little higher than they normally do, but that was great--"more" rarely being a problem when it comes to brownies, as you'll no doubt agree. Once those were gone, I made sugar cookies, and the only hitch there was that I was washing dishes while the last batch was baking, got distracted, and left them in too long. However, I only had to throw away two, as the rest were salvageable, if a bit crunchy. I'm eating the well-done ones first and put the "pretty ones" in the freezer. I have a lot left, and since I used my special cookie molds, they are all in fun shapes, hearts and Easter eggs. But the neighbors are not getting any of them.

I also made soup with tomatoes, kale, and chicken stock, but I had cleaned out a lot of magazines during my winter housecleaning surge and no longer had the recipe, so it wasn't the way I remembered it. I think I must have originally adapted the recipe to my own use because the one I found online that seemed most similar to it called for chicken, and I don't think I've ever made it that way. (There were some decent recipes in some of those magazines, but I had gotten tired of looking at them.) I always used sausage for this soup, but this time, I used leftover meatballs, and I think that made a difference, too. The meatballs were too dry to flavor the broth properly.

Today I baked bread. I had a feeling I might be low on flour, and I was. I had five cups, so I substituted ground flax seed for the sixth cup. (I have sometimes used oatmeal to round out a loaf, but the only oats I have right now are fancy Irish steel-cut ones that cost about $6 and are too expensive to use in lieu of flour.) I had to forgo kneading, as the dough was too sticky, so it went directly into the bread pans to rise. I couldn't even punch it down midway through rising because it struck to my knuckles when I tried it. So into the oven it went, and it came out of the pans cleanly half an hour later, though definitely browner and denser than it usually is. I ate some while waiting for my soup to heat up, and I've got to say, that is some healthy-tasting bread. It's got a slightly nutty flavor and is good on its own but would also make a good sandwich, I believe. However, I still prefer my average homemade white bread.

And that's about all I have to say this week. I feel that I should try to do something for St. Patrick's Day, but it will probably end up amounting to a bowl of Irish oatmeal for breakfast. I don't have a shamrock cookie mold, I'm not a fan of corned beef and cabbage, and the only time I tried to make boxty I was disappointed. I used to make a pretty good bread pudding from scratch, but I've already got cookies, as previously discussed. One dessert at a time, that's my motto.

Forgetting to Be Irish

I can never quite get off the ground with St. Patrick's Day. I know a lot of people love it, but for some reason I nearly always forget to wear green, and the holiday ends up as sort of a nonstarter for me. It happened again today: ahead of time I was thinking, "I'll bet I forget to wear green again." By the time I got dressed, I forgot I'd been thinking that, but I also forgot to wear anything green. Maybe it's just that I'm not overly fond of corned beef, cabbage, and green glitter, but for whatever reason, the day usually slips by me.

There have been a few St. Patrick's Days that were more memorable than others. For several years, I was in the habit of taking a vacation in March that often led me to NoCal so that I was in San Francisco for St. Paddy's. The first time it happened I actually went to a restaurant for an Irish meal; my friend Jot and I somehow ended up at this place in the Mission that was celebrating the day with traditional Irish food. I don't remember what I had, but considering my cooked cabbage phobia, I'm thinking it must have been something more like stew or potatoes. I do recall that we were regaled non-stop by a character seated near us who just could not stop talking. I've met some overly chatty strangers in my time, but this man was the very King of Chat, bar none.

You do meet some personalities in San Francisco, and sometimes you just have to roll with it, but I've never before or since met anyone so determined to insert himself into the conversation of complete strangers (and few people more immune to hints). As Jot and I were walking down the street afterward, I said to him, "I guess that's what you call the gift of the gab." And he said, "I think it's more like a curse."

I was in San Francisco for St. Patrick's Day the next year, too, though I had been in Sonoma most of the week and only drove into the City that day. I'd been intending to meet people, but they were called out of town, so I spent the afternoon and evening in North Beach. I had stopped by the Tosca Cafe, which didn't seem to have a lot going on, and then soaked up the street life on my way back to my hotel. My most vivid memory is of passing, on Columbus Avenue, a young, laughing man--definitely of Asian heritage--sporting the loudest Top-to-Toe All-Green leprechaun attire I have ever witnessed. I didn't even know they made outfits like that. He was well pleased with himself, and I don't blame him: the whole street was gaping at him. Well, there was no topping that in the Irish sweepstakes, and I finished the evening with pasta and panna cotta in the Italian restaurant next to my hotel. It was a very San Francisco St. Patrick's Day.

Then there was the time many years ago when I was passing through Chicago on the Saturday before St. Patrick's, and while walking by the river (in between trains), saw that it was dyed green. This is evidently a tradition in Chicago, as is their St. Patrick's Day parade, which had been held earlier in the day. I don't know if it was then that someone told me they'd been filming a movie or if I found out later, but it turns out that a scene in The Fugitive was filmed during Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade (Harrison Ford, on the run, blending in with the marchers). I was never for sure if it was this film or another, but I always assumed The Fugitive because it came out the following year. So I count that as the time I just missed seeing a movie being made and Harrison Ford in a green hat but got to see what a river looks like with a bunch of green dye dropped in.

Today was nowhere near that exciting, but it was sunny, which makes a pleasant change in this place at this time of year. I didn't do anything in particular to celebrate St. Patrick, but I did have a hobbity sort of dinner that included potatoes and onions. Contrary to the pattern of the last several years, spring seems to be arriving early this year, with things already greening up outdoors and the trees beginning to blossom. That's celebration enough for me. And may the road rise to meet you.