On Death and Drinking

You know how it is with the Irish; everything goes back to death.

I mean, honestly, how many of those drunken revelers in Shockoe Bottom even know that St. Patrick's Day is a commemoration of the death of St. Patrick?

But seeing as how I'm half O'Donnell and my great-grandparents were Irish who came to this country on a boat, I have a soft spot for the holiday.

Not in the "wear green and drink until you puke" way, but more as a way to acknowledge my heritage.

That led me to Shockoe Hill Cemetery on a day that could be considered gray and soggy or perfectly Irish.

Placed around the cemetery were small Irish flags denoting the Irish born, of which there were quite a few.

Today was the dedication of a gravestone for the victims of the Confederate States Laboratory disaster of March 1863 that killed 47 mostly young women and girls.

The factory was on Brown's Island and employed girls and women during the war's manpower shortage, not just because men were busy fighting but because their small hands were ideal for the work of making ammunition.

Fourteen of the victims were buried at Shockoe Hill Cemetery in unmarked graves, including four buried next to each other.

It was at the spot where the four were interred that the marker had been placed and today's dedication ceremony finally gave them a headstone.

A bouquet of pink roses and carnation was placed at the site.

The sad business over, the group then moved from under the canopy over to the keeper's house (mercifully heated) afterwards for some revelry.

Once I got inside, a man approached me and introduced himself.

He was the head of the Pickett chapter of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, one of the groups involved in having the grave marker made and placed.

Nearby on the floor were some damaged headstones and he gestured to them, telling me apropos of nothing about how they get repaired.

Seems there's a pool cleaner ("You can get it at Lowe's or Home Depot," he informed me in case I had any dirty tombstones) that returns them to rights without damaging the stone.

"The you use marble chips and put 'em in the hole and place the grave marker on top. It'll never shift or fall over again because marble doesn't absorb water," he told me.

Well, this was educational.

By then the food was set up and everyone pounced.

There was beef stew and corned beef and cabbage, both evocative of the Irish and both well suited for this cold day.

Since I'd had corned beef yesterday at my Mom's party, today I went with a big bowl of steaming beef stew.

I took it back into the keeper's house and settled myself in a blue leather wingback chair to enjoy.

Singer Susan Greenbaum serenaded us while we ate, starting with "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

Now that I was inside, warm and chowing down, my half-Irish eyes were doing just that.

Susan apologized for not having on green, although she gestured toward her green jacket, hanging nearby.

A woman behind me called out to her that green is only for Irish Catholics and that the Irish Protestants wore orange.

"Well, I'm Jewish and it's cold and rainy, so I wore long underwear so my Mom wouldn't get mad at me," Susan laughed.

"This is good weather for Ireland," another person said to laughter.

A man walked in the back and said, "I've been outside. Have you done "Danny Boy" yet?"

"I'm doing it right now but it's hard to get through it without crying," Susan said.

She did seem to tear up a bit and afterwards, acknowledged, "I don't care what your ethnicity or religion or lack of is, that's a moving song. It's mushy and the older you get, the mushier you get."

I wasn't going to disagree with her about that.

She continued on a more chipper note, doing some James Taylor, some Corrine Bailey Rae and some K.T. Tunstall for the group.

Afterwards, I wandered the cemetery for a bit, stopping at as many of the graves with Irish flags as I could before the dampness sent me back to my car.

Out of the blue, I had a memory from childhood of a plaque in my grandparents' house.

May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead.

Since I have no idea where my great-grandparents are buried, spending the day at the cemetery seemed like the most fitting way to acknowledge my roots on St. Patrick's Day.

I only hope they couldn't see that I wasn't wearing green.

Call Me a Guinness-Fueled Groupie

Sometimes, I discovered, it pays to be a groupie.

A friend had e-mailed me that he was playing at Positive Vibe Cafe on St. Patrick's Day and that "I'd love to see you." So naturally I went.

Their specials menu of Irish dishes (New England Boiled Dinner, Corned Buffalo Dinner, Sheppard's Pie and Guinness Irish Stew) were all too tempting for a half Irish lass. Knowing that they'd corned the brisket themselves made my decision all the tougher.

I was torn between the corned bison and the Guinness stew, but I didn't have to decide until my friend finished playing and his girlfriend arrived and we could all eat together, so I had plenty of time. Meanwhile, the restaurant was filling to capacity with people in green attire.

The guy at the table next to me wanted green beer, so his server asked what kind of beer he wanted. When he requested a very dark beer, his server explained that it was not a good candidate for greening and he settled for something more dye-worthy. Is this what St. Patrick's Day has come to?

My friend was playing viola ("for the mid-range") to Russel's guitar and vocals. The set began with Russel saying, "Karen, can you hear the guitar?" Yes, and the viola Dave was playing, too, but why ask a know-nothing like me?

They started with "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and segued nicely into, as Russell put it, "the Irish poet Van Morrison's" Moondance. Irishman Donovan followed with "Colors," one of several of his songs covered tonight.

I clapped enthusiastically for each song, not just because of my friend's viola playing, but because it was fun to hear these old Irish standards. Later I was thanked for clapping loud enough "for multiple people."

Their second set ended with that American-written vaudeville classic, "Danny Boy" and by then the girlfriend had arrived and it was finally time to eat.

The unexpected heartbreak was that the restaurant had been so slammed that they'd run out of all the Irish specials except the stew. So, Irish beef stew it was for the three of us and we were more than happy to have it.

Full of meat, potatoes and carrots, the Guinness gave it a nice sweetness and even the chef said he planned to have a bowl himself (that and make sure that he overplanned for Mother's Day business after leaning his lesson tonight). So the fact is, I did have Guinness for the first time in my life.

We finished with the fudge brownie topped with Bailey's Irish cream mousse (a tasty but sickening green color, but 'tis the day for such) before deciding to head somewhere decidedly un-Irish to finish out the evening. Mezzanine was our agreed-upon destination.

Packed when we arrived, first two stools and then a third opened up to accommodate us. We began with a bottle of the MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir (with Dave humming the "My Three Sons" theme as it was being poured) and a rehashing of the evening at Positive Vibe.

By the time the second bottle arrived, we were deep in discussion of Belmont Food shop (located in their neighborhood, but I was the only one who'd yet to visit), driving to Ashland for music (Dave and I have a history there) and the fact that she and I are the only two females alive without pierced ears (no, really).

In our ears was Pandora, set to Deerhunter, which provided an earwigging mix of Kings of Leon, the Arcade Fire and the Killers. When Band of Horses came on, Dave's ears pricked up. "Who is this?" he asked me. "I would like this."

I told him, I elaborated on the band, shared my impressions of seeing them live and all the while our bartender must have been paying attention. Soon we were hearing Pandora with Band of Horses as a starting point. Bravo for server attentiveness.

Dave insisted on the next course being tequila and while his love demurred, I of course did not. Herradura for him and Hornitos for me were our substitutions for Irish whiskey on this Gaelic night of being surrounded by guys in bad green wigs and hats.

"My treat!" he proclaimed at the end of the evening. "You were nice enough to come hear me play and you clapped the loudest."

But I do that any time I enjoy well-done music; it's a rare occasion that I get anything but an audio treat for being a groupie.

Maybe this is the reward for being a groupie to a friend. If so, I like it.

Honoring My Irish Beef Stew Roots

In the interest of furthering my community eating experience, I ate today at the St. Patrick's Day Beef Stew Luncheon at the Hanover Courthouse Volunteer Fire Company, just a short drive up scenic Route 301. As I exited my car, an older gentleman was getting into his so I asked him how the stew was.

"Good," and he paused to gauge me. "Only problem is they didn't peel the potatoes." He makes a peeling gesture with his hand. "Needs sharp knives. Irish can't be trusted." Then he winked at me, "Drunk...enjoy your lunch!" How could I not, after that?

Inside, the room had four rows of tables covered in green, white and shamrocked tablecloths and adorned only with bowls of whipped spread and packets of salt and pepper. But it immediately became a luncheon when after paying my $6, I was told to take a seat and I would be served.

"What kind of bread would you like: soda bread, cornbread muffin or roll?"
"Oh, I should get the soda bread."
"Well, yes, you should, but you don't have to."
"Yes, I do."
"I'll bring it out to you with your stew."

What I meant was that the O'Donnell half of me knows that my mother is busy this weekend making vats of potato soup and loaves of soda bread for her annual Woman's Day luncheon and having soda bread is as good a nod to my ancestry as any.

The steaming hot stew and bread arrived and while I waited for the stew to cool, I enjoyed one of the rye variations. Meanwhile, I heard my server tell the men behind me, "You done, guys? Now you have your bellies full, you can go home and take naps."

The stew was flavored exactly like the kind my mother made when we were kids. Nothing but chunks of carrots, potatoes, loads of onion and long-cooked beef in there. The stew liquid itself was not as thick as my mom's, but that's actually a good thing. Some of the meat was braised to the point of falling apart in my mouth and other bites were more toothsome and full of flavor; it's a great way to enjoy meat both ways.

As I was finishing my bowl, one of the volunteers came over to see how I liked it. I told him I had really enjoyed it and he told me I could have seconds. I told him I wanted to save room for dessert. He leaned down low and stage-whispered, "You don't have to get a whole bowl," and that was all the incentive I needed to throw back another half bowl.

The couple nearest me were older, maybe 70s, and just finishing their stew when I sat down. He ordered a quart to go. It didn't take her long to stand up and say to him, "Gotta have something chocolate," and head over to the dessert table, which boasted chocolate/chocolate cake, red velvet cake, strawberry cake, white cake, some kind of light green colored cake and brownies.

Eating her chocolate cake, the women turned to her husband and said, "We ought to get a piece of this cake to take to Mom on Monday. You know how much she likes chocolate." Mom? Wow, longevity, another good reason to keep eating chocolate. I got the same cake that her Mom was going to get.

And what's the appropriate music for a St. Patrick's day lunch? The first song I heard when I walked in was the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" followed later by Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." By the time they played MJ's "Rock with You," a group in the back was talking the joys of grandparent hood ("...still so precious, but not your responsibility..."), I was heading over to the firehouse, not to check out the yard sale inside, but to ask to look at the equipment.

"The cooking equipment?" the volunteer asked me. "We do a lot of cooking here!" No, actually I meant the fire equipment. But maybe I should go back for a tour of their other equipment some time; it's obviously turning out the kind of camaraderie and stew that make for a delightful Saturday mid-day meal.

Black Sheep and A View From the Top of rva

When I got up this morning and saw that it was already snowing, I had a brief moment where I worried that it would affect my lunch plans.

I should have known better.

Right on schedule, my friend showed up to pick me up for lunch (with the gift of flowers, always a lovely surprise) in the heart of Carver.

I should have walked the four blocks, but I'd done my four miles this morning, and he had to pass right by my house, so why not?

Of course the Black Sheep was nearly at capacity, but there was one two-top with our name on it.

The soup d.j. was beef stew and if this isn't a beef stew day, what is?

I got a side of the homemade pork and great northern beans baked with molasses and brown sugar.

Warm, filling and flavorful, this was a snow day lunch for the gods.

My friend, having just spoken to his mom before collecting me, ordered the CSS Virginia (fried chicken livers, remoulade, cabbage, green onions, granny smith apple on baguette) in her honor.

He only ordered the half and still had half to take with him, but then he did enjoy some of my pork and beans.

Afterwards, he suggested a drive to the top of the city to admire the view. We began at the old WRVA tower and then went to Richmond Hill, the urban retreat center and former convent that sits atop Church Hill.

We admired the view from the balcony, went down to the tiny little prayer chapel (with the two tiniest windows I've ever seen) overlooking the hill and then strolled around the perimeter of the walled garden under snow laden evergreens and bamboo (and, yes, I was using my umbrella in a snowstorm).

Despite the limited visibility, the garden and views were breathtaking.

Afterwards, we detoured through Chimborazo, admiring the snow-covered rooves of Fulton Bottom, before making our way back to J-Ward.

With a fully belly, a bouquet of unexpected flowers and the memory of the city rooftops covered in white fresh in my mind, I thanked my snow buddy for our excellent adventure.

And in case my new friend George from Toronto is reading this, I want him to know that I saw dozens of people walking around in the snow today with umbrellas.

Make fun of us if you will, but you also have to give us a break; we're clueless when it comes to snow behavior.

Of course, if this weather keeps up, we're bound to get better at it.

Maybe.