Pete's 30th and St. Paddy's Day Dash
Pete turned 30, and to properly celebrate his migration into the “30s� (a good age, in my opinion), I offered to bake a birthday cake, which then turned into a birthday dinner. And since his birthday isn’t that far from St. Patrick’s Day, I decided that Irish was perfect. Pete pointed out that he’s not Irish, but he really didn’t have a choice, and even if he didn’t want or like corned beef and cabbage, he did an excellent job of covering it up.
Last year, a few weeks before moving to Seattle, I made corned beef for Carrie, Emil, Rachel and Jeff and Melissa. The only problem was that the beef had already been corned, so I wasn’t sure if the deliciousness that we consumed was me or Whole Foods. This year, I purchased a beef brisket (grass fed, of course), and a week before the dinner, lovingly massaged a salt and spice rub into the attractive looking piece of beef. It went into the fridge, weighted down with Le Creuset filled with pie weights and a few cans of Guinness, and flipped and admired each evening.
I simmered the meat for several hours, and in the end, it was great – flavorful, tender, juicy…in all, we ate well. Veggies in the form of cabbage (of course), parsnips, boiling onions, new potatoes and turnips, which of course, were boiled in the broth after the beef was cooked, and I made Irish soda bread. Plus appetizers, cheese, crackers, tomato tart and Michael brought ceviche. And to properly celebrate Pete’s migration to 30, devil’s food cake with vanilla frosting (you devil, you!), plus a raspberry chocolate decadence something or other from Dilettante supplied by Rich.
Pete, you don’t look a day over 30. Seriously.
The next day, I ran the St. Paddy’s Day Dash 5K, coming in at 39 minutes and 29 seconds, which is about 3 minutes faster than the Jingle Bell Dash in December. My best race yet…this running thing is coming along quite nicely.
