Red Corn Resolution

  Let's see, this is supposed to be a beverage blog, so how to be on topic..... got it. Bourbon is made from corn. It's corn whiskey. There, it's all connected now. The corn below however, is not whiskey corn. Whiskey corn is the same corn they feed to cattle and hogs.

  Some time back I wrote about planting our friends' red New Mexico corn they grew a long time ago down on the Verde. Well, it came up and grew with great gusto. Some of the stalks were close to 15 feet tall. People driving by slowed down to gawk at it. One guy even pulled over.


  "Hey what kinda corn izzat innyhow?"
  "It's red grinding corn".
  "Izzit sweet?"
  "No"
  "Well then what's it taste like innyhow 'fit ain't sweet?"
  "Um...it tastes like corn."
  "Oh, well innyhow it shore is purty!! You gonna feed it to them goats?"
  "No. I'm going to grind it and make cornbread"
  "Ooooh Corrrrrnnnnnbreeeuuud, now I like me sum cornbread!"

  Just having it out there made us feel good whether it actually made any corn or not.  The picture above is from earlier in the summer when it was only about 7 or 8 feet tall and hadn't begun to tassle yet. Here's another picture of it standing tall behind the bantam sweet corn I planted just a few weeks ago as an experiment. I took that shot just a few days ago. It was finished at that point, dried silks and leaves beginning to dry.

  This wasn't a big plot of corn mind you. We planted 200 seeds in a plot about 12 or 14 x 25 or so. Yesterday Josh came down from NAU and we harvested it. I wasn't planning to pick it so soon but after picking a few test ears I could see it was ready and I was worried about mildew with the high humidity we've had and are still having, so down it came.

  I'm pleased to report that it produced splendidly. We had ZERO worm damage. It's nicely productive and most plants produced two ears with many reaching full maturity. We haven't counted, but we picked I'm sure well over 200 ears. It's drying inside now on a really inconvenient rack in the living room, until I can figure out some raccoon proof place to keep it. Last year's puny blue corn harvest provided the party snacks for a club of raccoons that invaded our neighbor's barn where it was drying. Not going to happen this year no. 

  Truth be told though, it's not red corn anymore. John and Susun grew a variety of grinding corns that summer back in 91, and it appears they all got together and pollinated each other! We can see traces of the Hopi White, Yellow and Chin Stripe corn that were neighbors to the Red. We don't care really and aren't terribly anal about seed purity, although we know we probably should be. Heck, every year I can't resist planting more than one variety of heirloom squash and then save the seeds. Sometimes the next year's plantings are edible and sometimes they're not. I think that old monk Gregor Mendel would have loved to see the outcome this year. Much more interesting than the silly Sweet Peas or whatever it was he was experimenting with. 

This one is worth clicking on for the larger version

  This picture is of some of the exemplary ears we saved to look at for a while before they're ground. Now Kate has to take it all up to Moencopi when it's dry and run it through the sheller and grind it and we'll be baking cornbread for John and Susun's return in November. 

  There is the barest hint of fall in the air. The morning light is softer, the air the tiniest bit crisp. When the sun gets up a bit higher it doesn't slap you in the face. The does have begun their morning fights, pushing and shoving and bloodying each other in the annual fall ritual of pecking order determination for the boyfriend who this fall won't appear. The poor girls are gonna be date-less all winter.It's been hideously hot this summer and unbearably humid. For once I'm kinda looking forward to fall, if not winter.  

Nature, Nurture and Shit From Shine-ola

photos are clickable for bigger versions

  Today Josh moved to NAU to begin his college career. It's only an hour away, and with today's modern communication even if it was across the country, he'd still be only a tweet, a text, a cell call away. And yet, tonight the house, the pasture are strangely empty.  We took this pic this morning during packing. His first car and his new car. First cars and first loves are almost interchangeable for boys; they both ultimately break your heart when they go, and leave a hole that is never quite filled. Here his beautiful old classic Benz poses alongside Josh and his more utilitarian Subaru. The Benz is saved from the ravages of the salty winters in Flagstaff and the Subaru will carry him safely on his new adventures.

  We raised Josh in nature. Rather than showing him nature through parks where you have to pay a fee, follow a trail, read signs and stand around looking at nature as an outside observer, we put him right in the middle of it. When he was four, he got his flock of chickens. He watched babies hatch and old or sick hens die. He gathered eggs and learned all he needed to know about managing money from selling eggs. As he got older, he moved across the taxonomic order and began raising sheep and dairy goats. He learned his birds and bees at a real early age watching goats go after it in the fall, and came face to face with the realities of birth by pulling gooey babies from their mamas and encouraging them to take their first hungry sips of milk. He dealt with the death of babies and learned to come to grips with the realities of physical ailments about which he had no control. He learned that all living things have their place in the wheel of life and his interest in the science and spirituality of life was born. 

  When he became a man in the Hopi way, he began to participate in the activities of Hopi men. The cycle of ceremonies and helping in the fields with weeding and harvest taught him the fragility of life and the intimate connection to the earth that he is heir to. The Hopi way has awakened in him an interest in the connections to the infinite that science cannot reach. Through his music, art and writing he explores that inner connection. 

  Today, shortly before leaving, Josh and I went out on the porch. Borrowing from one of the all-time most quintessentially philosophical movies ever made, I asked him to show me the difference between Shit and Shoe Polish. He passed with flying colors:

  He's done well, and we know he will continue to do well. He can tell shit from shine-ola and has a deeply personal sense of what's important and what's not. Tonight as he embarks on the next leg of his life's journey, our only wish is that he finds his joy. We are heart-fillingly proud of him, and heart-breakingly lonely. God bless him.

Sacred Mountain, the view from Josh's Dorm room

1991, Nostalgia ain't what it used to be....

 In 1991, we'd been here just shy of two years. Our house was new and the trees were small. There was no fence. The Javelina roamed the place at will and ate my sweet potatoes. There weren't any chickens, no goats, no sheep and only three cats. Josh waited off in the ether. He would have to wait two more years before being summoned into existence. No Josh, no goats, looking back It makes me miss them in reverse, or something.  It doesn't seem possible that there was ever not a Josh or not goats, sheep and poultry in our lives.
  We barely knew Johnny M. and Susan, or maybe we didn't know them yet, I forget. It doesn't matter. They lived in a tiny little trailer perched in questionable fashion on the talus slope above the floodplain on the Verde down a rutted-out trail that somebody had actually bothered to name Blue Sky Drive. Below, on that cobblestrewn sandy flood plain Johnny and Susun managed to grow a pretty wide variety of produce. They grew spinach and kale, turnips and radishes, tomatoes and watermelons and corn. Sweet corn and grinding corn, blue corn and yellow corn and Supai striped corn and Hopi white corn that the raccoons had a feast on one horrible late summer night. And they grew the red corn I wrote about earlier. A ruby red grinding corn from northern New Mexico that they'd originally sourced from Native Seed Search in Tucson.
  John gave me a big quart jar of seed and I forgot about it until Josh and I found it this year, twenty years since it's last seen the sun. Josh and I planted it the day after he graduated; Today it's poking it's head above ground and reaching for the sun. Welcome back! It's companion red lima beans aren't stirring yet, but I figure we'd get at least a few sprouts out of any batch of seed and since they can't all be duds, they're just taking their time. We'll see.

  Yesterday Josh and I went to Manzanita Outdoor in Prescott to pick up his new boat. It's his graduation present. We started looking for boats in the early spring and missed a number of them on Craigslist and also locally. Josh went back and forth between canoes and kayaks. Finally realizing that for now, a kayak wouldn't be a great first boat as a kayak is much more group dependent . He isn't likely to take a kayak out by himself, and at present isn't connected to any experienced kayakers with whom he can get out often enough to really learn. I'm pretty sure when he gets connected to the river running community in Flagstaff next year that will change. Being the roller blader and skateboarder he is I expect the first time he has a chance to kayak he'll be smitten. For now, he wants a boat that he can explore the rim lakes in and paddle the Verde and Oak Creek.
  We had a chance to look at a couple of different used Mad River Adventure 14s. We found two different 14's but missed buying both of them. They both sold for very close to retail price and one of them was 7 years old and pretty beat. As spring wore on canoe sales began to pick up and by Memorial Day there weren't any for sale, so we negotiated a pretty good deal with Manzanita on a new one. The Benz did a great job of bringing it home over Mingus Mountain and The Kid is already planning his first trip with a buddy.
  Josh's hard work at Red Rock HS continues to pay off. We got word of two more scholarships that have come in, both from foundations that provide scholarships to high achieving native American students. He won't be notified about Hopi tribal scholarship money until next month, but in looking at his NAU financial statement online, it looks like he's  going to be paid in full with what he's already received. I don't know how it works in other states, but for Arizona resident students, if you're not a high achiever you better have parents with deep pockets or you're going to be 80k dollars in debt when you graduate. Josh's class is the last one to be awarded the AIMS high achievement tuition waiver. The morons in our legislature and on our university Board of Regents have decided that helping deserving resident students is a bad idea. What's WRONG with this picture??
  Before coming home we stopped at Park Plaza Liquor and Deli, just off the square in Prescott. What a store. This place has a huge selection of wines and specialty liquors and something like 500 beers with over 300 of them available as singles. You can mix and match your own custom six packs and with 6 or more you get a 10 percent discount. They have a great kitchen with really good and affordable burgers, deli sandwiches and wood fire baked pizzas. The burgers are great, there is no foo foo artsy fartsy snobbishness to put up with, prices are reasonable and I can't wait to go back and try the pizza.
  Well, it's 7 a.m., only 60 degrees but the chill is waning fast and I'd better get out and feed the beasts and have a pep talk with the lazy lima beans.  Salud!

Graduation, lima beans, twenty year old corn and deposit bottles for wine

  It's been real busy around here lately.  Josh's graduation is Wednesday. It's been a typical last minute affair getting announcements written and mailed out. For some reason the kid will absolutely NOT blow his own horn and had no clue why anyone would want to get one of his announcements. It was like pulling multiple teeth to get him to actually sit down and fill them all out. He's done very well at Red Rock, graduating near the top of his class, National Honor Society membership, lots of scholarships including a recent juicy one from the Herman and Katherine Peters foundation. Good thing too, it's still boggles my mind every time I think about the fact that it costs IN STATE students about 20K dollars per year to go to any of the three state universities. Tuition is within a few hundred bucks of 10K, add in books, room and board and you've got twice that. I thought the whole point of the state land grant college system was to make college available and affordable for local kids. Boy was I mistaken. I remember paying 320 bucks a year at ASU for a full load. Shoot, textbooks cost more than tuition. I think I left college with a total "educational" loan debt of around 3K bucks, and I'd used that money to buy cars!

  Grownup beverages continue to be interesting around here. There are at least two new wine-themed restaurants and tasting venues in Old Town Cottonwood. I plan to get over there and write about them when the diploma-dust settles and the garden is finally all planted. The tomatoes, squash, onions, shallots, red chard and herbs are all in and up and the strawberries are producing more than they ever have in the last couple of years, which means you can actually pick enough to bring into the house instead of just happily grazing on them in the garden. It's been fairly cool so far and they seem to like that and flower more. They'll shut down too soon though, soon as it gets really hot. We still have Hopi red lima beans to plant as well as Johnny M's New Mexico Red grinding corn. He grew out that corn along the banks of the Verde in 1991, and gave me a quart jar of seed tightly sealed. The jar got stashed in one of my seed boxes and lay forgotten in the pantry ever since. Josh and I found it this year and put 20 kernels in wet paper towels ala elementary science class, and 18 of them sprouted in less than a week. So in a few more days it'll all be in the ground and I can get out a bit to check out the beverage scene a bit more.

  Yesterday was an off day for me at Desert Market, but I stopped by because the folks from Kind Vines in Flagstaff were there sampling out their new products. This three person company has a really great idea and I have high hopes for them. Their concept is pretty simple. Go out and find two good, reasonably priced, highly drinkable California wines, and one good locally produced beer. Flag has a number of decent local breweries. Come up with a label that is baked-on enamel, not paper. Invent a really cool reusable silicon gasketed glass stopper instead of a cork. Price the bottled products reasonably, and give a 2 dollar discount on the next bottle when the it's returned with it's stopper. Sanitize and refill the bottles. Zero waste wine and beer! It's also a real deposit. In other words, you can take your bottle and stopper back in and get your two bucks back if you don't want another bottle, or you can get two bucks off a different purchase if you want.

  The problem is, in order for this idea to fly, you've got to have a product that people will come back for. They've done well choosing their initial offerings. The Cabernet is spicy, mellow, with even tannins and just enough fruit to make it interesting but not the kind of cab you have to think about real hard. Barbecue cab, steak cab, roasted potatoes, carrots and onions cab. Their Chardonnay is a standout. I say this as a person who doesn't like Chardonnay in it's normal California Oakey configuration. If you're looking for the typical greasy  "buttery" chard that's been aged in oak, forgeddaboutit. This is a crisp, grassy, herbal chard that's done in stainless steel. Very nice. Their beer selection was a smart start, but I won't be drinking any of it. It's an IPA brewed by Lumberyard in Flagstaff. I understand their reasoning. IPAs are all the rage now among micro-brew drinkers, who apparently think beers so heavily hopped that they make you pucker up and bark like a dog are good. Me, not so much, but they'll sell beer. The college crowd will be all over it.
  Local buyers will find their offerings in Basha's and they are expanding slowly but surely. Several local restaurants have them too. I really hope they can pull it off. The simplicity of their plan is breathtaking. They tell me they are trying to hit up the local winemakers for product too, and that can only be a good thing.
  I stopped by Desert Market again late this evening and it turns out that they sold ALL of the two cases the distributors brought with them. Normally, when I work, we sell 20 or more bottles of wine in a day. On off weekends, it's been running more like a dozen bottles. Not bragging, just saying. I can sell wine. People today were jumping all over the idea of returnable wine bottles, buying bottles of each kind. It looks like the idea may have legs.  Watch for Kind Vines and give it a try.

 Salud to everyone, I doubt I'll be posting again till after the last strains of Pomp and Circumstance have faded into the sunset and the corn and beans are in the ground.

Fair Food

  The Verde Valley Fair has ended for another year.  We didn't show any goats this year, so our participation was minimal. For the last eight years, "fair week" has meant that we had to rearrange our schedules, take time off from work and school and be generally stretched real thin for 7 full days. Going to the fairgrounds every day, twice a day, to feed, water, clean pens, attend livestock shows and the auction and help the younger kids in the poultry and goat clubs. It was a real burn-out, but one we looked forward to. Josh's senior schedule and new job at Orion Bakery made him simply too busy to participate. He stayed in 4H, but did a photography project instead.

  Since Josh had photos entered, Katie decided at the last minute to enter one of her paintings in the art show too. It's an older one, sorry I don't have a pic of it, a watercolor of a little ruin that's in Chinle Wash, about a mile upstream from the wash's confluence with the San Juan River in Utah. A favorite place of ours for many years. She entered as an amateur because amateurs entry fees are only a dollar versus a ten dollar fee for "professionals". Somehow, in typical Verde Valley Fair fashion, she won best of show in Professional Class, and got a real spiffy ribbon and....drumroll.....a THIRTEEN DOLLAR premium!

  Josh's photos didn't win any ribbons or lucrative prize money, but he got lots of positive comments on them. Seeing the photo winners, it was pretty obvious that the judges were looking for "pictures that grandma would buy", as my friend Bobdog Brubaker says. You know, pretty closeups of flowers, or some old rusty car or wagon wheel. Josh's photos are gritty, require some thought. Here's one of my favorites, it's worth clicking on the image to see the larger version:

  As a result, we were able to actually attend the fair as regular fair-goers, gawking at all the carny type people and munching fair food. Fair food, in case you've not noticed, is a culinary genre with a huge following. It's also a category of food that's growing and changing all the time. It's truly amazing to see the novel ways that fair food chefs can transform the five food groups; sugar, salt, potatoes, grease and meat into gustatory delicacies designed to delight young and old.

  Skipping fair food while attending the fair out of some kind of silly nose-in-the-air culinary snobbery is to miss out on one of the main ingredients in the fair experience. You gotta at least get a funnel cake, and spill powdered sugar all over your shirt, or a big greasy barbecue sandwich, or a giant block of curly fries, or one of those enormous mutant-turkey legs. Roasted corn on a stick, all slathered with "butter" and lots of salt?  Come on. It's once a year, dive in head first.

  Katie has a particular fondness for the Grand Daddy of Fair Food Delicacies; The Corn Dog. A weenie on a stick, dipped in cornmeal batter and fried to golden deliciousness. Somehow, she missed getting one, so last night we endeavored to recreate them at home. Ours came out really well. Your author had never made a corn dog before, but I figured, how hard can it be? So I used blue corn flour to make the batter. It's simple really. Half a cup each of blue corn meal and white flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, an egg, half a cup of milk and a pinch each of salt and sugar. Get a big pot of oil going to about 360 degrees. You can test it by dropping some batter in; if it puffs up and turns brown, it's ready. I used Farmer John smoked sausages on bamboo skewers. Make sure the sausages are dry, dust them with flour, dip them in the batter and dunk them in the oil until they're all nice and puffed and brown. Mustard and Ketchup are the traditional condiments, but it occurred to me that since these were smoked sausages and not just your average weenie, I'd try some maple syrup as a dunk instead. A revelation, lemme tell ya. An ale from Prescott Brewing Company and some Flat Tire ale were the wash downs. The curly fries pictured are another story I'm just not going to tell.

  There's a disorganized slide show below of the arcane corndog cooking process if you're really bored. Meantime, it's May second and my tomatoes are crying to be planted.
Salud!

Wine Tasting and Troy Bilt Tillers

  You can't drive anywhere in this valley without ending up behind some minivan with a decal of  a happy family of stick figure parents and kids in decreasing size and a "god is my copilot" bumper sticker.  In that same spirit, I have my own version now. Presented without further comment.

 It's now official, I'll be pouring wine at Desert Market every other weekend, which, according to my careful prosthesis, comes out to twice a month. I've done two sessions so far, the second being last Saturday. I didn't write about the first session, as it went well but ended in a pretty bizarre fashion and I didn't know exactly what to say about it and was concerned that it might be my first and ONLY time there. Several good friends dropped by, including Johnny Montezuma and Susun, neighbors Greg and Nancy, and lots of other folks who formerly knew me as only their kids' teacher. Yes Virginia, it's true. Teachers have other interests besides your kids' ability to reason and do not crumble to dust and blow away after they retire. The day went well and we sold a lot of wine, not to mention beer.

  Things ended in a less than pleasant fashion. A couple known for their, um, FIRM political and religious opinions came in and tag-teamed me during the last hour of my tasting. This fellow had, HAD a business relationship with the owner of the store and so felt it was OK to take liberties and began pouring his own wine. I'll cut this short by simply describing it this way. Imagine, you're stuck behind a tasting bar, people are drifting in hoping to sample some wine and beer, and a loony-tunes and his even nuttier wife are both preaching to you. Looney Tunes is blaming the entire history of the United States and every wrong ever committed on President Obama and "The Socialists", while simultaneously, his deranged spouse, eyes wide and looking reminiscent of the eyes of that guy who shot Gabrielle Giffords, is showing you a carefully highlighted copy of a book of morals written for young people by Noah Webster in 18 hundred and something that she just happens to carry around with her. In addition, she's explaining how the Constitution of the U.S. is based on the book of Leviticus.

  I don't claim to be an Old Testament scholar, but the book of Leviticus is a book of laws. Most of these laws involve what ancient Jews could and couldn't eat, who got stoned to death for fornicating with whom, and under what circumstances it's necessary to take a sheep, a goat, or a chicken to the temple to have it's throat cut by the priests and burnt on the altar as payback for some sin. Granted, there is the phrase towards the end "Proclaim Liberty Throughout The Land", which happens to be on our Liberty Bell, or carved in the lintel of some D.C. building or something. Maybe that's the part she was talking about. Please be aware that I am not anti-Any Religion, I am Anti-Stupidity. She also managed, somehow, to blame virtually all of humankind's illnesses on, and I'm not making this up, GLUTEN. I had no idea what an evil, foul,  insidious, downright EVIL agent gluten is. And here I thought it was just a simple protein found in wheat and other grains that expands and knits things together, making risen bread possible. BOY are my eyes open NOW.

  Neither of this pair appeared to be aware that the other was talking. Each of them felt they had a BIG fish on the line and they weren't about to let me off the hook. My conversion was apparently what they'd been living for for some time. Having no spare Xanax in my pocket (note to self) and having nearly chewed through my tongue being nice, I had to beat a hasty retreat and got out of there as fast as I could.

  It turns out that Mike, the owner, was way more than sympathetic and we now have a nice "No Politics, No Religion, and No Cell Phones" sign posted right on the front of the bar. My second tasting went really well last Saturday. A steady trickle of folks beginning around noon. It turns out that Desert Market is ideally located to catch incoming folks from the valley who are headed to the tasting rooms at Page Springs, and also those who have already been there and are headed elsewhere. I actually like the ones who've already hit Javelina Leap, Page Springs Cellars and the others. They are nicely loosened up and ready to buy more. We sold 22 bottles of wine between noon and 5 out of that little store. I think we can do better as the tourist season cranks up.

  In other news, it's gardening time. When we first moved here, my neighbor, an aging and experienced gardener lectured me; "Don't plant until the mesquites are budding AND you can't see any snow left on the mountain".  That sage advice worked for years, but now, not so much. It's getting hotter earlier each year. One week it's freezing and then  whammo, it's summer and your tender plantings are keeling over in the heat. I never manage to get it quite right, stalling and worrying that it might freeze again. This year we want to have everything in by the first few days of April.  Our oldest garden spot, which now doesn't get enough sun to support a lot, is devoted solely to strawberries, a few herbs, and I planted the rest of it in onions and shallots. Last year's newer, sunnier and bigger plot will be strictly tomatoes and some kind of squash I can manage that won't turn into a monster. French Ronde de Nice round zukes I'm thinking. We're also fencing off the largest and sunniest spot out in the pasture. It has to be well fenced as it will be a big attraction for the goats. It will be for Hopi Red Lima beans and corn. We're going to plant a New Mexico heritage variety of red grinding corn originally grown down by the Verde by Johnny Montezuma his-self. He gave me a big jar of seed years ago and it's finally going into the ground.

  This plot hasn't been planted before, and the other day it dawned on me. "This is a big plot, you need a tiller." Last year, for the smaller space we planted, we utilized Home Depot's "rental" program and bought a little Honda Mantis-type cultivator to bust it up, and took it back for a refund when finished. I don't abuse Home Depot's liberal return policy very often, but hey, money was tight last year. If you've ever known anyone who works for HD, you probably don't have a whole lot of sympathy for that store anyhow.

  As soon as I realized we're gonna need a tiller, I came in the house and opened up good old Craigslist and there, at the top of the farm and garden for sale page, is a 35 year old Troy Bilt Tuffy listed for 25 dollars. Must be a misprint. Years ago Katie's grandfather gave me an ancient Troy Bilt that had been peacefully rusting away under a Cottonwood tree for many years up at Moencopi. "It ran good about 10 years ago". I brought it home and changed the plug and fluids and cleaned the rust out of the gas tank and it fired right up. A few years later a friend of mine was delighted to pay 300 dollars for it.  There is no such thing as a 25 dollar Troy Bilt. Must be a misprint. So I quick called the number on the ad. It turned out that this one was owned by this older fellow in Camp Verde and no, it wasn't a misprint. His comment was almost identical to Katie's grandfather's. "it ran good about 10 years ago, last time I used it".  He had sold his home and was clearing out the typical Camp Verde barn full of all sorts of strange machines, industrial junk and old farming stuff. An interesting fellow, he had gone to school at the one room schoolhouse at the old Child's Power Plant on Fossil Creek. After hearing lots of Verde personal history, he helped me load it up.

The 86 dollar Troy Bilt

  I brought it directly to Ken Bishop's shop in Cornville. Ken and his son Wayne and grandson Coawin can fix anything from a chinese tractor to a 53 Chevy pickup. If there was any life left in that little Troy Bilt, they'd find it. Sure enough, 61 dollars later, it runs like a top. An 86 dollar Troy Bilt. To quote Wayne R. through Johnny M. : "all in a day's Karma".

Corned Beef and Cabbage

  Q: What does this post have to do with wine? Or with the Verde Valley?
  A: Nothing, deal with it.

  Today is the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is a day when the whole country, some 60 or more percent of whom can claim some Irish blood, get really drunk and do things they'd just as soon not admit to and wear silly green hats and pinch each other. God love America and her holidays. We go nuts over Cinco de Mayo (even though we really wish they'd all go home),  a minor observance in Mexico and NOT their day of independence, so why not use our alleged Irish-ness as a reason to do silly things, drink too much and eat supposed "Irish" foods.

  For generations, the Irish have been known not for their food, but for their booze. Legendary distillers of some of the finest whiskey ever made, Bushmill's and Tullamore Dew are beyond compare. Then, there's Guinness. What would life be like without Guinness? I'll tell you. Dismal, that's what. I know you've heard me extoll the virtues of Bitch Creek here. No doubt about it, Bitch Creek is a great beer and my stash is almost gone, but Guinness is, well, Guinness. Guinness is perhaps the highest expression of the brewer's art. Their newly available Foreign Export, at over 8% ABV is beyond compare.

  In the food department, the same cannot be said. Imagine an island, surrounded by the cold, clean waters of the North Atlantic. A North Atlantic filled, brimming, JUMPING full of edible delights. The people who call this island home have a significant seafaring tradition. An ocean full of fish and a population that knows how to navigate those waters ought to equal a seafood culinary tradition beyond compare, right? Well, not so much. What have the Irish traditionally eaten? Cabbage and potatoes. Their legendary dependance on potatoes ( a decidedly native American plant) is what caused so many of them to flee their homeland and come to this country when the crops failed. An ocean full of the healthiest food on the planet and you're running away because the POTATO crops failed? WTF is wrong with this picture??

  I count myself among the smallest minority in this country. Someday I may start a fund or political action committee. PWANI. People Who Are Not Irish. We will stand up for our rights, just you wait and see. In the meantime, we'll just have to eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's day like all the other Suddenly-Irish Persons in the country.

  Before talking about cooking the above mentioned delicacy, we need to allay some myths. First: Saint Patrick's favorite color wasn't green. He's most often depicted historically in BLUE. Google is your friend, look it up. Second, and most important: CORNED BEEF is not Irish. You will most likely find actual Irish persons eating boiled bacon and cabbage. Irish bacon is more like our salt pork than our bacon. They might also boil up a joint of some mutton, or an un-cured joint of beef with the ubiquitous cabbage, but corned beef is a decidedly American addition to the tradition. In fact, it's more Jewish than it is anything else. The laws of Kosher require beef to be sapped of all it's available blood before cooking. Blood is a big biblical no-no (see Leviticus if you don't believe me). The practice of soaking beef in salt or salt brine is a tenet of Kosher food preparation. In addition, the word "Corned" comes not from any modern use of the word but from the ENGLISH (as in ENGLAND English) word for the size of the salt grains used in salting meat. As any practicing IrishPerson knows, the English are the Devil's Own.

  Somehow, never the less, corned beef and cabbage has become what silly Americans associate with St.   Patrick's day. All ethnic considerations aside, it's a great dish. Salty meat, cabbage, potatoes, what in the world is there not to like? It doesn't go with wine. It requires beer, stout beer, ale, good stuff, GUINNESS.

  I was in WalMart today buying a piece of corned beef and a head of cabbage. As I passed through the checkout, the lady checker said "you better get home and put this on if you want to have it tonight, mine's been in the CrockPot all day".  I smiled and said "I barbecue mine, doesn't take so long". "Oh", she said, looking at me like I was some alien spoor come to spoil her "tradition".

  Here's how to cook corned beef so it tastes better than the stringy stuff we all grew up with.

  SOAK: soak your piece of corned beef in tepid water for at least 2 hours to remove the salt. Change the water at least twice or three times if you can. Reserve the water from the last soaking.

  SIMMER: your beef in the last soaking's liquid until a thermometer registers about 140 degrees on the inside of the beef. Don't boil it for God's sake. It'll take an hour or so. Save the simmering liquid.

  SPICE: your beef with the paltry amount of seasoning that comes in the cheesy packet you got with your roast. Add to that more pepper, coriander seeds, etc. to cover the fat side of the meat.

  ROAST: your beef using offset heat on your grill. Light one side, put the roast on a sheet of foil to catch drippings or a pan that fits if you have one. Your grill should be not hotter than 250 American Degrees. It'll take about an hour. When it's up to 160 American Degrees inside, take it out, cover it with foil and let it rest.

  BOIL: your potatoes and cabbage, putting the potatoes in first and adding the cabbage during the last 5 minutes or so (see Vlad and Corina's cabbage abomination in a previous post) in the liquid you simmered the beef in.

  Slice the beef, scoop out the taters and cabbage, open a Gunness and enjoy.

 As me sainted grandmother never in her life said, "What's a fookin' crockpot?"