I Need To Expand My Menu

I DID NOT EAT CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I did not do that for several reasons – Number one – It is as authentic an Irish dish as Couscous and Lumpia. That meal is an American invention. How it came to be associated with St. Patrick’s Day I have no idea, but there will be no foisting it off on the fine folks of Ireland.

Reason number two – I think it is a terrible, foul smelling way to destroy my appetite as well as the corned beef that, by all rights, should belong, thinly sliced, on a slab of a nice dark rye bread with mustard and a “glass tea.”

No, rather than fall prey to the misleading propaganda from the evil Corned Beef and Cabbage Consortium, I went a more non-traditional route – I had wonton soup and potstickers – to go, please. If St. Paddy’s Day had fallen on another day of the week, other than Thursday, I would have eaten at home.

The reason I ended up with the plastic spoon and a fortune cookie in front of the TV was that on the third Thursday I participate in a Writer’s Group here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Potstickers – fried or steamed?”). We meet only once a month in a nearby coffee house that is of a different denomination than St. Arbucks. It makes me feel ever so ecumenical.

Writer’s Group Meeting

The group meets from 5 PM until 7 or so depending on how many people show up and have actually read the submissions to the group. While I find it all satisfying, and helpful in getting the creative juices flowing, it also makes me hungry. Go figure.

For the past few months after the group meets I found myself ravenous to the point of going to the nearest Subway and inhaling a meatball sub. I needed that like I needed a double negative. I would down that tomato-y monster and promptly fall asleep. I do that a lot anyway once my butt hits the seat in the “Rip Van Winkle Memorial Chair.” The overly cooked sub tended to aggravate the situation. I would find myself nodding off in mid-meatball. That is not a pretty picture I have been told.

{Bad taste Alert!} The only thing that would have looked worse, I’ve been informed, would be if I had ordered the Subway “Jared Special” sandwich. With that I would finish eating and then ten guys would come and beat the crap out of me in the  yard.{End of Bad Taste Alert!}

So, to avoid either falling asleep or being throttled by heavily tattooed and surly convicts ala the “Shawshank Redemption,” I opted to visit our local “Everything Chinese To Go” joint. They are quick, pleasant, relatively sanitary, and cheaper than Subway as a rule. These things are important to me. Not obsessively so, but since Subway raised their prices to pay for an entire new advertising campaign, I care.

So, no corned beef and cabbage. No Subway meatball sub. It was wonton soup and potstickers for me.

And it was good.  (Genesis 1:12 in some bibles)

Jared is 12th from the left

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