Stumping the Irish

"There's a potato dish I haven't heard of?" So asked my Irish diplomat friend, Iseult, when she heard Keryn was whipping up twice-baked potatoes. For my part, I had at least heard of them, I had just never tasted them before last night. (Refried beans, on the other hand, are an old friend. As they say, "My compliments to the chef. Again.) Keryn baked, twice, two varieties, one with roasted broccoli, the other roasted red pepper.

Tonight's dinner: Keryn's salad nicoise, with green beans and kalamata olives.

In other Pipóneratable news, here's three juicy culinary tidbits from a wedding invitation that just came in the mail from my friend, Harvard Magazine writer Elizabeth Gudrais, who is getting married in Minnesota and the Azores in June:

1. The "campfire" steak gets a cognac demiglace (a rich brown sauce that begins with a basic espagnole sauce and is combined with beef stock and madeira or sherry and slowly cooked until reduced to a thick glaze)
   
2. The almond-encrusted walleye gets a cream veloute (one of the five "mother sauces," velouté is a stock-based white sauce)
   
3. The post-wedding "picnic lunch" in the Azores involves burying food in the soil of a volcanic geyser, canoeing and then, when you return a few hours later, "it's cooked!"
   

To celebrate Halloween, try chewing a thrupenny bit

I invited a friend tonight to an "Irish Halloween" dinner, and though his official excuse was being out of town, I'm not sure he'd have come if he'd been home and dying of hunger. "It is actually kind," he replied, "even if the two English words that scare me most are probably 'Irish' and 'Halloween,' and I've never even seen them in such proximity to one another."


I have also taken a few cheap shots at Irish cuisine in the weeks leading up to this dinner, hosted by my friend Iseult Fitzgerald, an Irish diplomat who seemed so worried about feeding guests Irish cooking that she nearly put together a Georgian menu instead.


Oddly, Halloween inspired some Irish national pride in Iseult, who not only insists the Irish invented the sweetest and spookiest of holidays, but she says there are traditional Irish dishes (not candy corn) cooked but once a year in October. No, it's not brown bread, though Iseult did bake a tasty loaf and served it with slices of smoked salmon. No, it's not beef stew, either, though I was happy to find that Iseult had filled her cast iron pot with red wine-stained onions, carrots, celery and meat.


Courtesy of the Irish pagans, the Halloween specialties we sampled were colcannon, a floury potato casserole with curly kale, and melted cheddar cheese; barmbrack, a raisin loaf flavored with cloves and allspice; and a sweet Irish crumble fruit pie.


Nothing sounds particularly crunchy, right? But be careful as you chew. In another Irish Halloween tradition (would it be so hard to simply dress up and trick-or-treat in Dublin?), the host hides coins and trinkets in the brown bread and colcannon. Your teeth are not the only thing at risk. Sure, a coin is good luck, a ring means you'll marry in a year and a piece of miraculous medal could win you a spot at a nunnery or seminary. But be careful not to spit up a pea, or you'll be doomed to a life of bachelorhood, or a piece of rag, a harbinger of poverty.

That's pretty heavy stuff from the people who brought us green beer, parades and kiss-me-I'm-Irish pins.