Out of Synch, Part the First

It was 81 degrees outside at the time. That is pretty warm even for Central Texas in early March.

March for us is more typically a chilly month. Wet too if we are lucky (which this year we are spectacularly not). That gets us in very good shape for St. Patrick's Day usually, providing just the right backdrop for warm food and cold beer.

81 degrees is definitely not chilly. 81 degrees is what I refer to as "Hawaii weather" and it evokes thoughts of meals consisting of quickly grilled fresh fish or lovely salads piled high with crisp cool wondrousness.

Certainly not, say, a meal consisting of corned beef and cabbage.Plus how to find responsibly raised, humanely slaughtered corned beef brisket anyway? When I last checked, my reliable source of responsible proteins did not feature brisket.What to do when you are absolutely craving something that does not mesh with the weather or your principles?

Well, if you are me (and you aren't, clearly, unless you are, and then you aren't you anyway you are me....ow. My head hurts.)

Ahem. Well. If you are me, then you take a deep breath, take a look around at what else is going on in your life, and then make a judgement call.

Which is what I did the other day. In the midst of bewailing several recent kitchen failures, noting the warm weather, weighing in a condo sale apparently gone south, a not-entirely-happy grad student daughter up north, and a being delayed from getting going full time starting a new job so doing without a regular paycheck chefson, I took a deep breath and made the call.

I decided to allow for a rare exception to go ahead and buy a regular "I clearly hate polar bears/penguins/the earth in general" old corned beef brisket. Which, head hanging a bit, I did.

[Further proof of the universe not cooperating? The day after I bought that "ordinary" corned beef I noted briskets mentioned as now being for sale at Wheatsville. I live just far enough away from the Wheat to make one trip a week work. Timing!! Back to our unfolding saga...]

I prepared the corned beef according to Elise on Simply Recipe's baked preparation taken out of a post where she compared two techniques. One, a typical boil-it-with-pickling-spices and the other, an oven baked-in-foil-with-mustard method she proclaimed tastier over all. I cooked the stove top sauteéd cabbage and onion from the same post. It all smelled amaaaaaazing.

These are auxalis, not clover. Growing up we used to pretend and would hunt for lucky shamrocks anyway. 

Trouble was, by dinner time it was still just too warm to enjoy either hot dish. The Hub concurred.

So I popped them both, corned beef and cabbage, into the refrigerator and decided that if it was due to stay warm over the next few days (and it was) I would try this out in sandwich form with the cabbage added on and deli type salads as sides.Has this ever happened to you? You are craving a dish that simply doesn't work well with your surroundings or your circumstances? If so, what was it and what did YOU do about it? Tell me in the comments section and we'll both feel better.