I had what I felt was a genius idea for a blog update today: St. Patrick's Day at the Forinos'. It was going to include a little lore, a little history, how my favorite characters relate to the topic, and then share an example of what a St. Patrick's Day meal would look like in a household such as theirs.
And then the world changed and ingredients for the fun little meal my wonderful hubby was going to make us got to be a bit hard to come by. These are pictures from my local Walmart before things got really nasty:
But more critically in my little corner of this world, my son fell horribly ill which resulted in 2 visits to the emergency room a day apart ... and a change in diagnosis (negative flu, negative strep, so they assumed mono ... and then negative mono so I guess it's just viral tonsillitis? That's what they're going with, anyway).
Steroids, IV fluids (his first IV), medicinal popsicle and Powerade, followed by more days of misery kinda threw us all for a loop. (As an aside: it's hard to medicate your child to keep his wild fevers under control when everyone else has hoarded the Tylenol and Motrin!)
Anyway.
I looked back at my plans for this blog update, then at the first blog post at this new site ... and I'm starting to get the idea that maybe I just shouldn't plan things. As the saying goes, "The best-laid blog plans of Jewel E. Leonard often go awry."
What had I thought to do instead? An unboxing video of a ridiculous care package sent by a friend from out of state including much-needed supplies I've been unable to find here. Have I mentioned that it would appear Arizona is the worst state in the US for toilet paper hoarding? Well that plan fell through as the box has yet to arrive.
So back to the original plan: We still made that Irish-Italian St. Patrick's Day meal (with a lot of creative substitutions on my end as a shopper and on my husband's end as the cook). I had to go to two different stores. And don't worry; social distancing was easy when in my town of 50k+ we all know the stores are picked clean so only the desperate are the ones who bother. The aisles by the time I got there were as empty as the shelves.
First choice was Walmart as I was going out for more than just ingredients for this meal. Of the 8 things I needed, I only found 2 there:
In some ways, Basha's was better. In others, it was worse.
No lobsters?!? NOT A ONE!
The meal made from slim pickin's came together to look like this:
Don't mind the Emergen-C in the background there. Consider it ... a sign of the times. On that plate is Calabrian fennel sausage, Irish cheddar mashed potatoes (with some slyly sneaked-in Italian seasonings), and vegetables au gratin. Oh, and since I'm trying to be gluten-free, there's none of that on this plate. Why the Italian sausage and seasonings in a perfectly good Irish dish? I imagine in a household shared by a stubborn Italian man and a spirited Irish woman, there'd be a bit of compromising to be done for such meals. And this particular Italian man would try to inject his sausage any which way he could.
Hey! Getcher mind outta the gutter! 🤣
So I don't know about you but my world is about to get exponentially more bizarre in the coming days. I begin working from home tomorrow! I'm anxious but so grateful I have an employer that cares about its employees enough to grant us this opportunity. Maybe with 2 hours of each day gifted back to me (in not having to commute to work), I'll be able to get more of Coven edited! Baby steps, baby steps.
Stay well, dear friends and stay the hell away from everyone else for a while, mm'kay?
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