|
My wife Celeste sort of thinks of herself as half Irish. It’s a little more complicated than that, but she’ll have to explain it herself if you insist on knowing. In any event, though, Celeste had, until she was eighteen years and six days old, the last name O’Dell, and now, this afternoon, quite a lot of years and a few surnames later, she is cooking, as an early celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, a fine stew of corned beef, cabbage, and the customary accompaniments. The meal smells great and I am eager to try it, so this little story will be brief as I can make it.
Celeste, a few days ago in the Piggly Wiggly, would have been tempted by the corned beef whatever the price, but, as it happened, it was on sale at $2.99 a pound. Celeste chose a two-pound slab and, on our drive home, mentioned how pleased she was with the bargain. That remark caused me to recall my one and only experience of acquiring corned beef anywhere other than in a pub or restaurant, and I probably had told her the story before, but I told it again just to find out how much it might have changed since the last time I had thought of it.
Sometime in the first year or so after I moved back here to Fjord, when I was living alone, I drove one day to the Pick N Save in Cappella, and bought two or three, maybe four, shopping bags full of groceries and did not realize until I got home and started putting stuff into the fridge, that I had one item that I had not chosen, a bright, bloody slab of corned beef, shrink-sealed in plastic, a slab very much like the one Celeste has in the crock pot right now.
I carefully checked my cash register receipt and saw that I had not been charged for that item, and then I called Pick N Save and asked to speak with a manager. I explained that I would guess probably the person ahead of me at checkout had meant to take that piece of meat home, but somehow it got mixed in with my purchases instead.
The manager thanked me for calling and asked, “Then you’ll be bringing it back to us now?”
Well, as you, my reader, may know, if you live around here or have been paying attention when I tell you these stories week after week after week, the Pick N Save in Cappella is about fourteen miles from where I live, here in the Village of Fjord, and so you will not be surprised to hear me say that I told the Pick N Save manager, “Oh, no, that is not my intention. I plan to cook this meat and enjoy it, thank you very much. I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t be suspicious when someone comes back to your store to tell you the rest of my story.”
And so, while it may be true, what I’ve heard, that there is no such thing as a free lunch, the only corned beef meal I ever cooked did come pretty close. Now, please excuse me. Celeste is ringing the dinner bell.
♦
|
