Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I love food. A lot. Probably more than the average person. But I hate cooking. Haaaaate it. I'd rather be cleaning the toilet or getting a root canal by Freddy Krueger. Which makes it even more weird that I have a secret crush on chefs. Go figure. (and bald guys) I do enjoy our family cooking rituals - making Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses with the kids, pierogi making parties, etc. It's just the "I have a free day so let me spend the day in the kitchen cooking!" idea that I have no interest in.  I grew up with a family and friends that were fabulous cooks (hi dad!) and were always using me as a guinea pig for new recipes, or dragging me along to funky little restaurants or new places that were opening up. And I loved it - talking about exotic foods I had never heard of before, and trying foods that I didn't even know how to pronounce let alone eat (why are there so many forks anyway??). So I might have let myself become lazy in the kitchen over the years because, well, someone was always doing it for me. I'm not trying to sound like a spoiled brat by saying that because believe me, my parents raised me to be an insanely hard worker and I knew how to do laundry, dishes and vacuum before I could walk. (that may also explain my obsessive cleaning tendencies too, but that's another story). My college boyfriend was also amazing in the kitchen and would whip me up a meal just because or make me homemade chicken noodle soup when I was sick (looking back now, what guy actually does that?? in COLLEGE?!)
My job after college required me to plan and attend many events and do a lot of traveling. For those of you not familiar with the events world, what that means is that you eat like shit. Some of it is good shit, but most of it bad shit. You run around during set up eating whatever you could scrounge up (i.e. candy and caffeine - Hai Starbucks!!), then secretly grab a fancy appetizer that you have no clue what you're eating at an event that doesn't really fill you up but gives you enough of a boost that you don't pass out after working for 14 hours. This was my 20's. I did also throw the occassional dinner party with the ex-boyfriend, but that usually meant me finding a cool recipe and him actually cooking it.....or that I just wanted to decorate or style the table.  (I did however always clean the dishes afterwards - I'm all about equality :)
Even now, I love to host people for brunches and dinners at my house, but if I'm actually cooking (from scratch and not just microwaving, re-heating or putting some Trader Joe's wine and dips on the table), it's a struggle. But I do it because I enjoy having people over and  entertaining. So......here was my attempt at corned beef and cabbage this year.  It actually was pretty good, and people went back for seconds! It's not as good as my aunt's, and probably will never be, but I did have fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it. At least that's what they said to my face :) Happy St. Patrick's Day!