St Paddy's Beef: Part II

This is Part II of this series. For Part I, click here.

Because the meat was going to take so long to cook, I had come prepared to do some work at a coffee shop during that time. Of course, as soon as I went searching for a place to perch, I ended up shopping instead. The recession has it's bonuses, most markedly the vast amount of sales that dot the retail landscape. However, except for some horseradish mustard and Grey Poupon, I went back to Noemie and John's empty handed. Just cuz stuff's cheap don't mean it's pretty.

While I was out stimulating the economy, the future husband and wife were doing the same. Apparently, after I left, they had a real "urge" to play Sorry. So they trekked in light rain to several neighborhood stores before finding a board at a local Rite Aid. Something about a pair of adults walking the streets of Brooklyn to track down a game meant for seven-year-olds warmed my heart.

When I returned, wafts of allspice, cloves, and peppercorns permeated the house. It smelled heavenly. But it wasn't time to eat yet; first, Noemi was going to make me some Irish soda bread (the subject of my next post). So we did what came naturally - we talked and drank enough coffee to give me the shakes for days. Several times in the middle of our conversation, John added a staccato "I'm hungry" and "I want that corned beef!" Noemie responded by looking longingly at the boiling pot.

It was just about 6:30pm, a good four hours after we had begun, when John started looking at his watch. Three friends of theirs had been invited to partake in the corned beef experiment. They were late, and the minutes passed painfully.


Unable to wait, John put a small potato on a cutting board and cut it into bits. The tuber was saltly from the brine, and juicy and oily from that meat. My mouth watered. Noemie gave John a high five, "Good job, baby! I think that beer really added good flavor." John tipped his glass of Guinness at her in reply, then removed all of the meat from the pot and laid it out on a cutting board. He let it rest for a good 15 minutes; in that time the couple's friends arrived with bread and brews to share.

"Ok, so I'm putting a curfew on our hanging out. 10pm. That's it. This daylight savings time is messing me up." John announced as he sliced the meat into generous portions, plattered the cabbage, and spooned up the spuds. I wondered if we could actually eat our way through the glistening and steaming piles of food in such a short amount of time (we would eat all of it goddamit!). "You guys hungry?" We responded with a slow, Homer Simpson-eque "mmmmm." Kevin, one of the friends there to dine, watched John closely. "So, this is like a one pot meal, huh? Do you brine it? Like, in salt water?" he asked. John explained the process. Later, Kevin told us that despite being a first-generation American from a family of Irishmen, his mother pooh poohed traditional Irish fare, so, despite his heritage, he was unfamiliar with the meat's preparation.

Hoping to prompt everyone to sit and eat, I anxiously took a seat in the dining room ahead of the rest of the group. The sooner we were at the table, the sooner my stomach would be satisfied. I could barely contain my excitement. Finally, John began bringing in the dishes from the kitchen and, after he set his iPod to play some traditional Irish fiddlin' tunes, we dug in.

The corned beef was brown on the outside and only slightly pink in the middle, not the traditional deep rose color due to the lack of sodium nitrates. It was tender, fatty, and deeply flavorful. The exact way the meat should be. The vegetables - carrots, cabbage, and potatoes - had absorbed the tastes of the pungent allspice, bay, and clove. I helped myself to three plates of the stuff. It rarely gets better than this.

The group of us laughed and ate and laughed and ate until our cheeks and stomachs hurt. When it came time to leave, John and Noemie presented me with an amazing gift - a doggy bag filled generously with the night's treats. While I rode the subway home in a food-induced coma, I congratulated John with a mental high five.