Dueling Saints

Today is the Feast of St. Joseph so my husband Joe  is celebrating his feast day. Since he had Sicilian parents and their heritage included a tremendous devotion to St. Joseph,  the observance involved emptying the furniture out of a main room,  constructing a huge altar with 3 tiers, draping it with the colors for that year (kind of like a prom theme) and then loading it up with all kinds of lamps, candles, flowers, statuary, etc. Once the novena began the house would fill up nightly with Italian ladies who would sit in the rented folding chairs before the altar, pray the rosary and singing feast day songs at the top of their lungs, all in a  pre-WWII Sicilian dialect. At the end of the hour they moved to the kitchen and had coffee and pastries and chatted. It was a thing of beauty.

Small but Sincere!

The feast itself was a consummate tribute to Sicilian culture and cuisine.  Maria’s version of Pasta di San Giuseppe was a marvel of cauliflower, fava  beans, chick peas, and other ingredients that made a chunky, creamy white sauce served over  homemade pasta.  It was not for the faint of heart – you either loved it or hated it. (I loved it.) The rest of the dishes were largely seafood based (it being Lent and living in a fishing community) and side dishes included battered artichoke hearts and stuffed, sun-dried tomatoes – long before those became “popular” here in the U.S.  It was no wonder my Irish heritage was largely ignored as St. Patrick’s Day got lost in the shuffle.  As the years passed, and Maria did likewise, the festivities moved to other houses.  St. Patrick’s got back on the map, but not in ways I ever anticipated.

I love my Irish heritage and I’m a bit of a purist.  My grandma, Margaret Carroll McGill,  was born and raised in County Kerry and she told me I never had to wear green on St. Patrick’s day because I had true Irish blood. (Somehow I got it in my head that my blood turned green on St. Patrick’s Day and I always wanted to prick my finger to see it bleed – and see if it was green.)  My mother never made corned beef and cabbage because 1) she probably didn’t like it and 2) it really isn’t an Irish dish.  Irish bacon and colcannon are more proper, and I”m not a big fan of any variation of colcannon I’ve ever made.   My observance of St. Patrick’s Day centers around using my Belleek china or having a pint of Guinness (no proper Irishman would be caught dead drinking green beer).  My husband? The Sicilian prince?  Loves corned beef and cabbage. When I say “loves” corned beef & cabbage, I mean “would marry it“. He has a serious problem.  This really happened:

Joe:  I went to the store and picked up some groceries.

Me: Good, we were getting low.  What did you get?

Joe: Well, I bought a nice slab of corned beef!

Me: Really?  (Jokingly) Just one?

Joe:  Well, actually I bought two and thought I would freeze one….

Me:  Seriously?  Two?

Joe: Well (pointing to the refrigerator) …. there might be three in there.

Me: THREE?  There MIGHT be three?  Are you serious?

Joe: Well, we never have leftovers to make corned beef hash and I know you like that.

Oh yes, I’m sure he bought it for me.  He does that a lot. He will come home with a ham and say, “Look what I got you!” (Ham = oxygen to him.) In Sicilian culture, food is love. He shows his love for me by bringing home food he loves. Whatever. He cooks it (I refuse to) and enjoys it with as much relish as he does his feast day pasta.  March is his favorite month.

These days our altar is small but very sincere. We used to have a little silver tray to hold the mass cards of people we had lost, but as years passed we graduated to a lovely crystal bowl. After this round, I think we need to find a bigger bowl.  In twenty-five years we have collected a lot of those little cards. It is with great love and many tears we go through and review  them, but we always try to remember how lucky we were – and still are – to have loved so many wonderful souls. We pray for them, for families and friends, and this year for the new Pope Francis on whom the future of the church hangs in precarious balance. He will need all the help he can get.  I have set aside many of the beliefs taught to me in my youth, but I have hope in him. Besides, who better than the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi to guide us going forward?

The Quest for Unscented Anything

A few weeks ago we celebrated Joe’s milestone birthday with an outdoor party.  I really enjoy using my nice linens and vintage pitchers and containers for vases and candles.  I think it makes the party more personal when you celebrate it with things that are special to you. The problem came when I went in search of candles for the centerpieces. I love me some fire on the table and usually have a formidable stash of candles but alas, I had apparently (and literally)  burned through my supply. No probs, I thought, I’ll just pick up some more.

NOT.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find unscented candles?  I’m talking about pillar candles here, not a wimpy tea light or formal tapers (I always have those) – I wanted a nice, sturdy candle that would burn for hours. (Hey, my friends are 1) thirsty and 2) big talkers.) We have long, luxurious “dinner in Italy” style meals.  It’s the BEST.  Anyway, I burned a lot of time and gasoline in my quest and came up with butkus.  I was more than annoyed – I was ticked off.  Really folks, do you want to smell “woodsy pine” or “cinnamon apple” when you are eating dinner?  No.  Why is everything SCENTED?  Why do people buy home deodorizers that run continuously and make their houses smell like a powder room?  Why not save the money and spend a little time finding the source of what is making your house smell so bad that you need to install a 24/7 deodorizer?  Jimmy Hoffa’s body has to be somewhere, right?

Admittedly, my pale Irish skin is oversensitive to scented lotions and products. So is my pale Irish nose. I am on a quest to locate a lifetime supply of Dove unscented deodorant. I loved it and can no longer find it among the 24 varieties they now offer.  Really, Dove?  I used to love your unscented body wash and you had to mess with that, too.  You used to be the industry standard for not-crapping-up-products-with-cloying-fragrance.  If I try a new a shampoo or hairspray and I love the results  it still goes right into the trash if the scent is cloying and overpowering.  I smell it ALL DAY LONG. 

Back to the candles.  I solved my dilemma at the grocery store.  No, they did not carry unscented candles.  They did carry Yahrzeit candles and I could not believe I didn’t think of it sooner. ( I spent 4 years as a nanny for a Jewish family where I learned about the tradition of burning that candle on the anniversary of the death of a loved one.  Always loved the idea.) I bought six of them and took them home to put in the arrangements.

The finished product was lovely – I grouped them on the smaller table the next morning and we had a lovely, private brunch. (We were house sitting.) Of course we honored the intent of the Yahrzeit candle.  We lit six candles – three for Joe’s mother, father, and his only brother who have gone before us.  We lit two for my parents, also gone before us. We lit the final one for the pregnancy we had that didn’t make it all the way to the finish line.  While we wanted all of those souls to be present it was simply not possible. We  took comfort in the fact that we were able to remember them with such deep love and light – and so privately,  just between the two of us.

It was a wonderful evening and the candles burned blissfully unscented long into the night. We shared memories, gave speeches, talked about the people we love and gave thanks for the people in our lives, living or not-so-living.  Joe had me in tears when he talked about the “luckiest day in his life, July 4, 1987.”  (The day we met.)  How wonderful is that? I love happy endings.

Sweet Corn Wars

Indulge me. I am locked in my annual sweet corn battle with my husband and I need to vent.

Growing up in the Platte Valley of Nebraska learned a few things about farming, seasons, and when the hell you eat sweet corn.  My husband (a barnacled coastie from Gloucester who has an umbilical cord that won’t reach over the bridge and wouldn’t know a farm implement if it rolled over his foot) thinks sweet corn is pretty much available 24/7, 365.  Consequently, he started bringing home this “stuff” from the local grocery stores in May, crowing about how this is going to be a “good batch” and asks me EVERY NIGHT IF I WANT SOME CORN ON THE COB.  Every night I say NO I DO NOT WANT YOUR FAKIE, TASTELESS YELLOW JUNK.  Does he stop?  No.  Does he give up?  No.  Will this be the cause of his death someday?  Highly likely.

I have an almost religious fervor for authentic sweet corn. Even the proper way to cook it is a bone of contention at our house. Joe boils (yes, boils) his fake yellow pellets-on-a-cob while the chicken is still on the grill.  I am serious. I am not making that up.  I explained how the water should be simmering and everyone seated at the supper table before you even SHUCK the corn, but my vast experience is lost on him. It is apparently his culture; it seems to be a big problem out here because I see people at the grocery store shucking their sweet corn AT THE STORE and then putting it in their nasty produce bag to cart it up to the register.  This effectively starts the dehydration process before they even pay for the corn, insuring by the time they reach home it is suitable for feed corn (that’s for animals, people) and nothing else. Let it sit in the frig for a few days before you cook it and….well, I can’t even go there.

One of the last times my parents flew out here was in August, about the time of the Perseid meteor showers.  I remember when I went to Logan Airport to pick them up I saw them come off the plane with luggage and nothing else.  I shrieked, “Dad, you didn’t bring sweet corn????”  He stopped, turned to my Mother and said, “You know, we drove past all those farm stands on the way to the airport (180 plus miles) and we didn’t think to, did we?”    I wanted to turn around and leave them both at the airport.

I recently found the blog of a classmate who talks about living and working a farming operation in 2011.  It is unlike anything many of you would imagine.  His Platte Valley Farmer blog gave me a huge lump in my throat.  It brought back so many memories, made me terribly homesick, and positively despair over ever tasting proper sweet corn again.  I’ve pretty much given up on consistent sweet corn it out here – every store in town calls it “local corn” WEEKS before anything planted locally could be ready to eat.

At least now can visit my friend’s blog, watch the corn grow and learn more about how positively amazing the science of farming has evolved.  Every August I enjoy looking back on the night of the Persieds with my parents, my mom’s peach pie & cobbler,  and  pretend that on that mid-August night we  perfected the evening with some authentic and buttery fresh  sweet corn.

PS – The next time Joe tries to get me to eat his impostor sweet corn I am going to buy a really expensive piece of fish, boil it, cover it with ketchup and serve it to him for supper. Maybe then he’ll get my point.