I cooked Italian for my Irish father on St. Patty’s Day

Escarole and Beans the Patty way

Inspired by Giada Whosis and Mark Bittman

• Chicken broth. Homemade.  End of discussion.
• 2 or 3 minced garlic cloves
• olive oil
• Small dried white beans, soaked overnight and cooked. No canned. End of discussion.
• A couple of heads of escarole, rinsed well and roughly chopped
• Salt and pepper
• Small piece of a parmesan cheese rind
• Parmesan cheese for topping

Cook the garlic in olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the escarole and cook until it’s wilted. Add chicken broth, cheese rind and beans. Heat thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve topped with parmesan and maybe a little olive oil. We also had spicy Italian sausage which were a perfect complement.

I had never made this before. It was a fresh and quite tasty dinner.

Although it was green, serving Italian-style food on what my father refers to as a high holy day seemed a little wrong. Although he did proclaim it the best escarole and beans he’s ever had.

And somewhere, my half Irish, half Italian mother is smiling.

I think this was 1977, maybe 1978. Which would make it impossible for the child on the left to be my son, because he was born in 2000.

Besides the color of my hair, let’s dwell on the texture for a moment. I think the word that best describes it is STRAW. We went to Hawaii at the tail end of summer, following months of swim practice every weekday from 10 – 11:30 and 3:30 – 4:30 (on Saturdays we did the morning workout only). The hours between workouts were often spent exclusively in the pool, and sometimes my dad and I would go back to the club at night to cool down for a few minutes. These were the days before I knew to put loads of conditioner on my hair and then wear a cap. And yeah, this was also before my hair curled… like my mom’s.

The memorial service was beautiful yesterday. The four ginormous collages were a hit

And so was the eulogy. I made my mom proud, and I felt her standing right there with me at the lectern in the church.

As I said to my husband yesterday, if I could write and then deliver my mother’s eulogy in front of a church packed to Easter Sunday capacity, I can do anything.

Maybe this was taken in August, when I came home from the hospital, and developed in October. Maybe it’s from my baptism.

Regardless: holy guacamole. I was little.

It’s been a punishing and fun and awful day, going through all these pictures. So many memories. Wait ’til I whip out the pictures of me when I was 11 (and hello, I looked exactly like my oldest son, just replace my platinum blonde hair with his copper hair and we’re flippin’ twins) in Hawaii.

I scanned pictures, I cropped them, I learned the hard way that the kiosk at Rite-Aid will make any ole picture 4×6 whether you want it to be 1×3 or 42×87. Oops. I re-scanned pictures, I re-saved them as JPEGs rather than TIFFs, I may have lost my shit once or twice.

I did everything.

Except.

Write.

The.

Eulogy.

But – before I go. Check out this picture of my mom. And look at that little puppy trailing behind her. Bonus points to the 3 people who read this blog who know where it was taken.

I’m listening to The Joshua Tree, scanning photos of my mother to make two ginormous collages for Saturday’s service, and writing the eulogy in my head.

When her films arrive by FedEx later today, I’m taking my sister to an East Fucking Coast Doctor Who Knows His Ass From His Gamma Knife, It’s About Fucking Time for a consultation.

I’m planning tonight’s dinner for my family. I’m overjoyed my goodest good boy survived his emergency spleenectomy on Tuesday. I’m wondering if I’ll ever want to go back to work. I’m giving the other pets new and even goofier nicknames. I’m wondering if my new highlights are warm enough. I’m telling my boys it’s ok if they come to the service and it’s ok if they don’t, that I feel Nana with me every day, that Nana wants them to laugh and be happy and it’s ok to have fun. I’m picking what I’ll wear (in case you’re wondering, I’ll be the harlot in the front; we’ll see if the church combusts when I walk in). I’m wondering if I can get the doodle to the dog park today in this bitter cold. I’m steeling myself. I’m imagining what I’ll feel like speaking of my mother’s love in front of a church-full.

And I’m ok.

One of the top 10 happiest days of my life: the day I received my hard-earned MBA

If you’re expecting something porny based on the title, you”ll be sorely disappointed. But I hear My Little Redhead Midget Part 2 is pretty good if you’re into that sort of thing.

I can cook.

I mean cook. This never ceases to amaze me, because in my head I’m still the teenager who could barely boil water, the neophyte whose mother brought the turkey the first few times I hosted Thanksgiving. Trial and error, a discerning eye for recipes I like, a few tried and tested techniques. I can cook.

Hauling out the slow cooker and the stock pot more often since Christmas, I’ve reflected on these simple acts: choosing a recipe, shopping, putting chef’s knife to shallot, sauteing, roasting, broiling. Nourishing my family.

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It’s ten degrees outside. Even without that hard bit of data, I knew it was damn cold as I padded across the pine kitchen floorboards this morning. Thousands of dollars on insulation and new windows later, our home remains a drafty old farmhouse. I let the dogs out into the snow and felt the arctic blast, realizing too late that the tank top and flannel pjs that felt so reasonable between memory foam and blankets were no match for this morning’s deep freeze.

I closed the folding doors to the basement and the pantry, eliminating some of the draft.  I built a fire, hoping to get the living room cozy and warm before my boys awoke to greet the new year.

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It’s odd to vote and not get the sticker.

(And that guy? Who sued because the sticker ruined his suede jacket? Not only is he a local – the drama unfolded at my very own polling place. And with that, you’ve fulfilled your quota of Patty trivia for the day).

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