I decide, while I'm feeling sorry for myself, to pick up one of my favorite books, in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day. Angela's Ashes. Frank McCourt's memoir of his extremely challenging and poor childhood in Ireland and the U.S. This book always makes me feel grateful for what I have, and points out to me the hell that human beings can survive. After re-reading the part in chapter three about Frank's mother, Angela, managing to get a pig's head for Christmas dinner. That's all they could afford, and they were lucky to get it. To top it off, there isn't enough coal to cook the pig's head, and the boys and their father have to go out on the streets to scrounge for coal to get their Christmas dinner cooked. I won't even begin to go into the hell that their living conditions were. I will just say, that's enough to make me stop whining about not being able to have corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day.
So - I decide to thoroughly go through my pantry and figure out just what we can have for St. Patrick's dinner - I have managed to find 6 lamb chops left from the 4-H sheep Cordelia raised a couple of years ago, and I decided to take with me when I left my married life - tightly wrapped, and due to be used. There are 3 potatoes in the bottom of my fridge needing to be boiled up and mashed up with some butter and milk, and, hello! A bag of frozen peas in the back of my freezer. Voila! St. Patrick's day dinner is good to go, and I'm counting my blessings! Lamb chops! Yum!
Hmmm - and desert? I know apple pie doesn't sound Irish - it's all American right? Well, apples were a big part of the Celtic diet, and I already have the apples sliced and frozen in my freezer. I just need to make a pie crust, put the apples in it with sugar, butter, cinnamon and a little lemon zest, all of which I have on hand, bake it, and we have a traditional Irish desert for St. Patrick's day.
Hopefully I'll pull of of this off, and hopefully everyone else out there will have a wonderful, nourishing, and plentiful St. Patrick's Day.
'Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!'
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
P.S. - when the money situation lightens up a bit, I still plan to corn that brisket and have myself a belated St. Patrick's Day dinner.
2 comments:
I think that sounds like a terrific meal even if you scrounged it from what you had on hand. We've all been there and truthfully, cleaning out the freezer from time to time keeps us from tossing it all away.
After a divorce is never easy on any of you. I wish I could give you a cuddle and say you'll look back on this in the future and think these were fantastic times learning who you are as a woman, a mother and a friend.
Thank you Maureen. Thank you for stopping by my blog and for the kind and encouraging words. They're much appreciated.
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