Something has always bothered me about doppelgangers and people sharing my same name. My first instinct is to kill them. I get this weird feeling that as long as they are above ground, circulating and respirating in the same world that I am that somehow my life is diminished, my identity sullied by some lesser version of me. I realize that this is totally irrational and I would never act on these crazy feelings, but pushed far enough, encroached on by interlopers and hacks, I might be forced to at least kick a little ass.
Recently someone suggested that this guy’s emergence might be seen as an opportunity and that by having a little competition might be a healthy thing. Maybe this would spur me toward achieving my goals in a more timely fashion. Perhaps we could have some kind of publicized cook off. All of this is well and good, but why should I suddenly have to defend my trademark just because some toothless wash-out wants to clever up his cooking pilot, “Alaska on a Platter”. He’s all about down to earth straight talk, about promoting Alaskan Cuisine. From what I’ve read he seems like a nice enough guy but sounds about as interesting as a lovable train bum that keeps telling you the same story over and over again on a fourteen hour haul through the Nevada desert. And this idea about Alaskan Cuisine, what the hell is that? Alaskan Cuisine makes about as much sense as Alaskan Fashion. There are only three elements you need to know; flannel, sweat pants, and rubber boots. Yes there are some endearing qualities about the food you might find in Alaska. There’s a whole lot more game, and the fish is extremely fresh, but let’s not kid ourselves here, Alaska is no Mecca for haute cuisine. Unless you’re eating seal blubber straight off the ulu you aren’t doing anything they didn’t do in France or Disneyworld first.
With that said I would like to warmly encourage Mr. Stryjewski to cease and desist. Stop fooling yourself. There is nothing Deadly about your biography. And nothing that would warrant you calling yourself “Alaska’s Deadliest Chef”, unless of course you’re referring to your current post in the cafeteria of the Chester Park Senior Center.
Irish Cuisine, yet another oxymoron
I hope that last part didn’t come off as too defensive or bitter. I don’t want it to diminish this next part of the blog because in all honesty what I really care most about is writing about food.
I know I’m a little tardy but I wanted to discuss our traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of Corn Beef and Cabbage. How exactly this became an Irish thing is not entirely clear. My Grandmother who is 100% Hillbilly Irish (from the hills of Kentucky and Indiana) tells me that in Ireland they don’t eat Corn Beef on St. Patties Day. I did a little digging and found out that in fact Irish immigrants began to substitute Corned Beef for their traditional Irish Bacon around the turn of the century because it was cheaper and more widely available. They learned of Corned Beef from their Jewish neighbors in New York and Boston. I could never figure out why Rueben sandwiches became so popular for the Irish holiday. The Rueben always struck me as something you’d get in a Jewish Delicatessen not an Irish pub. I know it’s not kosher but with a name like Rueben it’s definitely not Irish either. I guess the beauty of St. Patrick’s Day is that anyone and anything gets to be Irish for a day. Irish seems to crawl from the woodwork, to seep from every crack and ooze from every hole in a person’s genealogy. Just like Cherokee, but on a less permanent basis, people want to be Irish for some reason. Maybe it’s that they have always been underdogs. Maybe it’s their cute accents and their penchant for drinking and brawling. I don’t know.
Recently my wife and her mother travelled to Ireland to visit their ancestral home. They had both been granted Irish citizenship because of their direct matrilineal link to the homeland (Cat’s grandmother immigrated to the U.S. in the late forties). I can’t say I’m not a little jealous. I’ve always fashioned myself as a bit of a Mic. Unfortunately I’m a too much of mutt to make a strong claim on my Irish heritage. If you ran across me in the streets of Dublin you’d probably think I’d taken a wrong turn at Bucharest.
I still really enjoy St. Patrick’s Day no matter how cobbled together it’s meaning and customs. I, for instance, have always celebrated it as a kind of a pagan wake for that bastard St. Patrick who came and ruined all the cool druidic traditions of “primitive” Ireland. People always say that St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland, but the truth of the matter is that there weren’t any snakes there until he arrived. Religious and symbolic feelings aside I still think St. Patrick’s Day is pretty awesome. And I think I like Corn Beef and Cabbage primarily because on that particular holiday you don’t necessarily want to be bothered with cooking some complicated meal. You want to go out and get drunk. You want to raise hell, have sex and party. Corn Beef and Cabbage affords for all of those execesses and quite honestly never disappoints. Only a complete idiot could ruin it. I mean really. How hard is it to dump a slab of meat in a pot, cover it with water, turn on the range to medium low heat and walk away for several hours? In the time I had our corn beef on the stove Cat and I went out for a couple drinks, came home, had a few more cocktails, had sex, showered, and watched some tv. About an hour before we were going to eat I halved a few red potatoes and added them to the pot, threw in a few whole carrots and a half an onion. Half an hour before dinner I cored a cabbage, cut it into six wedges and set it on top of the other ingredients in the pot and put on the lid so it could steam. Nothing could be simpler. In my opinion no other meal even comes close to facilitating the consumption of large amounts of alcohol. And really, isn’t that what St. Patrick’s Day is all about?
Recipe
Corned Beef and Cabbage
One corned beef in a bag (brine and seasoning packet included)
6 quart pot or larger
Enough water to cover meat by two inches
Four whole carrots
Six to eight whole red potatoes
Half an onion
One small to medium cabbage
1. Open packaging and dump corn beef into pot. Fish out the spice packet and set aside. Rince excess brine from bag and add to pot. Cover meat with water to two inches.
2. Add spice packet and turn stove to medium heat, or medium low if you will be leaving the house.
3. Cook for several hours. If water gets low add more.
4. About an hour before you want to eat add the carrots and potatoes (halved or whole) and half an onion. Cook about another half hour to forty minutes.
5. Twenty minutes before you eat core and wedge the cabbage and place it on top of the rest of the ingredients. Cook twenty minutes or until tender.
6. Serve and enjoy. Horseradish is optional. Mustard is good to, and some people even eat their corned beef with catsup but personally I think those people suffer from the same kind of brain damage that most lovable train bums and lifelong Alaskan residents do.
Recipe
Guinness and Black
One Guinness Draught
two ounces of black currant juice
1. Pour Guinness into a glass
2. Add black currant juice
This is something that the Irish drink in Ireland. When my wife came back she raved about the drink and said she ordered it everywhere she went. At first she kept asking for Irish Car Bombs but apparently they don’t have such a great sense of humor about that as we do here in the States. Honestly I can’t say much about Guinness and Black other than it seems to me like a woman’s drink or something you might find Irish puffs drinking in the gay part of Dublin. It makes me feel a little weird thinking of an Irish pub as being a gay bar but in Ireland it must be pretty common.
Anyway, there you have it. Until next time. Eat well and have fun.
