Saint Patrick’s Day. This is a “must” day for the Julie/Mom
Project. By blessed god or goddess we will celebrate this occasion! I saw
adverts for a few places in the Julie/Mom Project hit list and considered some
local places, but we we ended up on a different mission.
Well, we haven’t “officially” been to Scoopuccinos yet. I
called them up, given their advertised specials in the North Country for corned
beef reuben sandwiches and corned beef and cabbage dinner. It was JUST dinner.
Julie and I wanted lunch and we wanted “traditional”. Side note here is that
“corned beef and cabbage” is NOT “traditional Irish” fair but traditional
“Irish American” fair. Look it up if you don’t care to recognize, this blog is
about today’s world.
We briefly considered Maxfield’s (still on our hit list) and
just as quickly rejected McDuff’s (written up last year). Also thought about
Eben’s Hearth, where we love, but have already done for “the Project”. Looking
through the “North Country This Week” adverts, we saw Murray’s Old Irish Inn.
It turns out that Murray’s is not listed in the North
Country This Week Restaurant Guide that is suppooosed to be the guiding light
of this blog. Well, I suppose we are off to new country then. We googled it,
pretty much stop at main place and turn right. The St Lawrence Seaway was our
guiding sureness. We hit that and
turned right! Turned right again and eventually found it.
The immediate survey found two small rooms adjoined in the
center. The furthest room housed an inactive furnace fireplace and a mostly
working pool table with over half the seating capacity. I honestly didn’t ask
about the fireplace, it may well be in full force during the height of the
winter season! It did not look disfunctional.
We were there for traditional American Irish corned beef and
cabbage meal. Murrays promised it was there at lunch hour start for Sunday
celebration and so it was! Julie and I headed out of town for not-quite
Canada. I joked about having our
passports.
We found it eventally after realizing we couldn’t cross the
seaway/border. Thank goddess for rural, sparse areas that make finding an
establishment with a tiny, inobtrusive place an excercise in satisfaction.
The party was apparently over the night before... great for
us, bad for traditional St Patty’s Day partiers. Not “bad” I suppose. I recall
times in my younger days of St Patty’s Day celebration with too much revelry.
So it was great for my day with my 11 year old kid, Julie, of the PROJECT.
We ordered our plates of corned beef and cabbage (supposedly
profits offerered to a charity though i never caught what it was), then
wondered about. There was a pool table Julie insisted on playing. I told her
maybe and we did later.
The plates were piled high with corned beef, cabbage, baby
carrots and potatoes, topped with a slice of buttered raisin bread. Julie asked
about seasoning as we fished out large bits of flavoring, whole black pepper
kernels and a bay leaf.
As we tucked into this smorgasbord, I considered our
surroundings and presentation of the occasion. The large mirror backing the bar
was engraved with “GUINNESS” as was other decor, including a proper dart board
that was clearly not in use due to the presence of a structural pillar directly
in the location of the throwing area. There was some typical green paperwaste
garland and such, but my daughter and I were decked out in the most elaborate
schemes for anyone there with our “I <shamrock> NY” shirts and green
shamrock bead necklaces.
Julie got a green colored Shirley Temple, I ordered Guinness
Draught. I looked for a tap and saw none. Out came my perfect draught. I
noticed the empty box of nitrous oxide infused cans later. Works for me...
beats the sometimes dirty lines in the places that serve the Guinness from a
tap.
I asked about the process by which Julie ate her meal. I ate
mine typically for me, a few bites of each item at the same time. I like to
bolster the blandness of the potato (red skinned here) with a bit of corned
beef and/or cabbage. Julie claims to eat each item in total, separately, in
order of least favorite to most. I asked her how she felt when she then ate too
much of her least favorite items and was too full to eat her favorite, “I hate
it when that happens”. Curiously she claims also to save her least favorite
item for last so as to use the excuse of being full to not eat it. The raisin
bread went uneaten despite her claim to like it (two bites removed). The corned
beef was second last to go and consumed in entirety! Both of Julie’s strategies
seemed to be in play.
