Green Night

Several St. Patrick's Days ago as I was doing my meal planning, I had visions of corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread and perhaps another side dish to round out the meal. Corned beef brisket was on the front page of every grocery store sale flier and who can resist a hunk of meat for $1.99 per pound? It's like a gravitational pull. Then there's the cabbage that stores are practically giving away. And we all know that a head of cabbage will stretch for three meals or so or at least until we're all good and sick of it. So what's the problem? The problem is that my family can't stand any of it, save the soda bread. So feeling like it was time to break out of the societal mold, I owned up to the fact that none of us are Irish anyway, so it was time to chuck the traditional faire and go for something with more gusto--or at least with more color. Don't get me wrong; I still like to decorate my hallway table with cute little shamrocks, green candles and the like, but our pot 'o gold was not going to be simmering with corned beef and cabbage. So rather than chew on the 'ol brisket until our jaws ached and listen to choruses of Seriously, This is Gross, Mom, I simply preserved the color of the occasion: Green. Everything would be green. Green pasta with green sauce, green vegetables, green drinks, green dessert. I couldn't stop there. Green plates, green glasses, green napkins, green centerpiece. There's more: the family had to wear green. What could be greener--I mean, better?

I grocery shopped accordingly, snubbing the corned beef brisket and zipping by the cabbage with a smug look on my face as I headed for the spinach pasta, fresh basil, broccoli, peas, romaine for the salad and limes for the Key Lime Pie. I set a table the Emerald City folk would be proud of. I robbed the hallway decoration for the centerpiece and set out the green plates and glasses. I informed the family of the dress code and fired up the Riverdance videocassette (the original and my favorite) taped off a PBS special years ago to enjoy as I cooked. I prepared my 5-ingredient Key Lime Pie and simmered a basic cream sauce, added the steamed broccoli and peas, then finished it with fresh basil and feta. Have you even noticed how a little feta cheese can give a dish a certain something? I’m pretty sure I have had feta cheese as a fridge staple for over six years running. I cooked the pasta al dente and tossed the salad.

We were nearly ready. My husband dispensed with the tapdancers and put on some Chieftans just as I dashed a couple drops of green food coloring into the pitcher of milk for the table. Our meal was as delicious as it was green, and infinitely more fun than the standard C.B. & C. We practiced our corniest Irish accents and recited as many Irish facts as we could recall or make up. So even though I broke a few dozen rules, the luck ‘o the Irish still prevailed upon our very green dinner.