Our St. Patrick’s Day dinner plan

It was a good plan.

A local caterer had emailed customers saying a Saint Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage gourmet special was available to celebrate the Irish.

I’m Irish.

This was an excellent caterer. It was also my version of cooking, so Ana didn’t have to.

What next? Invite two Irish friends. They agreed to join us for our special day.

What could possibly go wrong?

With email solicitations it is best to respond by email, not just leave the order on the message phone. On Saturday I learned my messages were never received. There was no order. There was no gourmet meal prepared for our Sunday celebration.

No problem — other restaurants surely would have take-out specials that day, right?

Not as many as one would think. But I struck gold — a place in Turlock had corned beef and cabbage specials for the holiday. And they would take pick-up orders.

When I called back to finalize the order, on Saturday evening, I learned that the special was for Saturday. The restaurant was closed on Sunday.

We would have to cook the dinner.

Ana is a great cook. But she is from Spain, not Ireland. She had never prepared corned beef and cabbage.

Some of my sisters were actually visiting Ireland, so they couldn’t help. My sister Sheila was home in San Jose however. We called her to learn the tricks of this Irish dish.

“Sheila, how did mom make corned beef and cabbage?“ I asked. Her response, while laughing loudly, “She didn’t. She hated corned beef. We never had it at home!” Shelia was laughing too much to be helpful.

So we looked it up. Google said we had to have a Dutch oven.

I was concerned. What is a Dutch oven? We certainly didn’t have one of those. I envisioned some special device for some Dutch delicacy.

Ana set me straight. A Dutch oven is a big pot with a lid. We had one. This begs the question of why a simple cooking device that has been around far longer than the Netherlands has been a country would be called a Dutch oven. It’s just a big heavy pot! Don’t dress it up.

Cabbage can also be a problem. Did you know that there are two kinds of cabbages? The regular kind, and one called Napa cabbage. Why does Napa get its own name for cabbage? I purchased both just to be sure we had the right kind for the dinner.

We had one more crisis. I had texted my friend, “What kind of beer do you like for dinner?” He did not immediately respond.

I haven’t imbibed in 30 years. In my day, Budweiser was the beer of choice for most of my crowd. Coors was for the less-cool folks. And LA Dodgers fans.

Today, the beer department in the store offers hundreds of choices. Handcrafted, locally brewed with the best hops, cleanest water, and happiest beer makers in the world, except for the hundreds of equally happy beer makers from overseas.

My friend texted me he wanted a dark beer. But it was too late to factor into the choice since I was already home, and I was not going to the supermarket for the fifth time in one day. Besides, the bottles were a dark brown, so I couldn’t tell.

The dinner was fabulous. The corned beef and cabbage (regular, not Napa) was succulent and tasty, the potatoes and carrots tender and warm. Dessert was a delicious cuajada.

So don’t panic when the master plan goes awry. Go to plan B, or C, or D. And don’t forget the beer.

Erin go bragh!

This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.