Danny Boy, from YouTube




Our St. Patrick's Day view                                                                

The first chef I worked for in LA was a tall, handsome Irish lad with a wicked tongue, a quick wit, and a hot temper. When Bob and I moved from Vashon to Los Angeles we kept to our neighborhood and stayed west of Vermont Ave. I job-searched door-to-door visiting potential restaurant employers in Westwood, which was walking distance from our apartment. Late one rainy October afternoon, I dripped into Stratton’s, an imposing, formal, European-style restaurant on Braxton Ave, and asked to see the chef. Dennis —tall, dark (think Mr. Big), and languid with a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth—walked lazily into the empty dining room from behind a swinging door and sat down at a linen-draped table. “What can you do?” “Well”, I stammered, “I can do anything you want”.

Dennis was a lifelong baseball fan who bled Dodger blue, an unrepentant flirt, an enthusiastic gambler, and a hardcore drinker. He was also a CIA (Culinary Institute of America) graduate with an amazing bank of culinary knowledge, could tell you at any moment what his food cost was, and had the respect and affection of his boss and his volatile Mexican prep staff. Not so much the wait staff—they were just plain afraid of him. Dennis’s temper was legendary—new young, servers were especially vulnerable and short-lived. He was always sweet to me, though, and became a good friend. Through him, I met Bea and through Bea—Karen, Laurie, Bill, Sandy, Nana, Fred, Ruby, Anabel, Kyle, Stella, Rusty and Jack, etc.

Dennis' s kitchen was like a closet—dark and narrow, with room for two at most. The hot line consisted of six burners, two ovens, a Traulsen (overhead broiler-type oven), a two-row cold table, and three under-counter reach-ins. A stainless steel prep counter, three feet behind the hot line, ran the length of the 9' kitchen. The pass-through, where the runners picked up the food, was directly above the cold table.
 
Not many executive chefs work the line, but Dennis did and was an excellent saute cook—focused, foul-mouthed, and surprisingly fast for someone so tall. I served as his counterpart during the lunch rush from Wednesday through Friday, plating dishes, saucing entrées, wiping plates, and expediting the tickets as they came in from the dining room. Special requests from the maitre'de received an immediate, explosive refusal. "Tell them to bleepin' eat somewhere else if they bleepin' want their bleepin' steak well-done!"

He loved to party and no party was more important to him than St. Patrick's Day. Los Angeles's pubs and bars celebrated with vigor—green beer, green hair, green food. Dennis began talking about the upcoming event long before, so when Thursday, St. Patrick's Day, finally arrived, he was stoked. Friday, the day after, I came to work at 8:00 am as usual, filled the steam table, and set up the mise en place
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place) necessary for a big lunch rush. Fridays were huge—orders started at noon and we were slammed until 2:00 or 2:30.

10:00, no Dennis—not too unusual. 10:30, still within the limits of his world. 11:00, now the waiters are worried. 11:30, now I'm worried. At 11:45, the door to the small kitchen opened and Dennis crawled in on his hands and knees. "Marla, you're going to have to get it today", he moaned. His right eye was swollen shut. His lip was split, and his hair flattened to one side. He climbed up onto the stainless steel table, stretched out as far as he could, made a pillow of the kitchen towels, and went to sleep.

Raoul, the dishwasher, came in to help me, Dennis roused around 1:00, and we all survived to have an elegant lunch of Glazed Corn Beef, mashers, and Irish soda bread.

"May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door. Happy St. Patrick's Day

Oven Roasted Corned Beef

• 1 (5 1/2 pound) corned beef brisket with spice packet and 3 cloves garlic
• 7 small whole potatoes 
• 4 carrots, peeled and halved
 
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the brisket on a rack in the center of a roasting pan. Empty the seasoning packet over the roast, add garlic cloves, and pour enough water into the pan to cover 2/3 of the corned beef. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.

Roast for 4-5 hours in the preheated oven, until the roast is tender. Remove foil and liquid, glaze with  1 part brown sugar, 1/2 part mustard, a splash of vinegar, and return roast to oven for one more hour. Let the brisket rest 10-15 minutes before slicing. 

Boiled vegetables don't do much for me. I oven roast the carrots and potatoes and steam the cabbage along with a pat of butter and a dash or caraway seed.

Boiled Corned Beef and Cabbage with glaze

• 4 to 5 lbs. corned beef
• 1 Tbs. pickling spice
• 1 Tbs. salt
• 10 peeled cloves of garlic
• 1 head cabbage, cut in wedges
• 6-8 carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces
• 4 red potatoes, peeled and cut into large pieces
• 4 Tbs. brown sugar
• 2 Tbs. vinegar
• 2 Tbs. cup mustard
Mix ingredients.
Remove beef from juices. Add vegetables and simmer until tender—15-20 minutes.
Place drained beef in roasting pan and pour glaze over roast. Bake at 350 degrees, basting occasionally, for 30 minutes. Let rest for 15 minutes, slice to serve on the diagonal. Serve with horseradish mayonnaise.