This long, long post, expanded on by the hour, of all the great things to do still today right here and now, and only right now, and I originally thought we had much more of a window than that and it shut hard on St. Patrick’s Day afternoon, just when we thought we were besting even The Cities in most things Irish, and revelry events were just getting going and making fodder for the start of several pages of posts that would ASAP in detail virtually everything to do, see, eat, drink and hear, and all the different forms of greenery and quirky doings that decorate the unique holiday. When done just a wee bit from now, it will be by far the most comprehensive report and events guide in the guise of all things Irish in any way, anywhere, anyhow, in the whole region, even Irish enclaves itself, I gloated on Monday. There also will be, shortly, a detailed account of the many closings and the varied effects they are having right away, on parades all over the area and otherwise, with a by-the-hour, play-by-play rundown of how the decisions played out and were finalized within hours of each other as each waited to see what the other was doing, for the three city parades that are all within 20 miles of Hudson, which oddly enough even though is bigger than the rest by thousands of people has nothing of this type, but hey as I’ve said, quirky in a charming way is the nature of most things Irish. But this slamming of a door on Erin’s Irish and many others was only the start, There was much more woe to come and quickly. I wrote shortly beforehand that you get the picture, and if I listed it all you’d see that this is the only place you find such varied and detailed content in my manner and writing style that advertisers say is all my own. I guess it was I was the one who didn’t have the picture soon to be even more right in front of me in focus, — SO I HAD TO SPEND HOURS LATE ON MY HOLIDAY AND REDACT AND REVISE AND REPLACE AND MOVE SENTENCES AND PUT IN A BOATLOAD OF TENSE CLARIFICATIONS, BUT THAT’S OK AND MAYBE EVEN MADE THE WHOLE THING BETTER. — Was I focusing too much on all the gold I would get from all the ad support, which shortly down the road to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow would morph into even more readership than already gained by this package, and they surely would keep piggy-backing with luctativeness, (is that a word or even that used in banker-speak?), enough to please even a hog farmer (and that’s a tough sell, especially when it come to farmers, considering these types of concerns they have faced for a long time). After all, why do you think they take out ads, which they value enough to pay for them rather then expecting freebies, enough not only to tell what about what they doing and what makes them different then the other guy, but log on once in a while to read just for their own entertainment and you can be sure they’ll be online today. That’s readership. And it and the ad money from it is still pretty darn good, as a fairy princess.
One last thing, and this is vital to complete your holiday. which has crucial and significant changes cropping up almost by the minute, especially from the realm of politicians rather than royalty as you might find in the parades, so I ask you — in fact plead with you for both our purposes — to tune in once in a while quite late to get updates and any more cancellations, done on a dime, for a bit of cool flavor from earlier in the day, I wrote at midday. Also readers will get a report of the changes or endings of events along with their rationale and how they will invariably effect people’s plans, and if any are made last minute, I added, as hey, you’ll read it first here — and if after diving too deep into the copy, you find my writing style gets too cumbersome, and I understand that view, take a break. Get out a green beer to gulp, or sip, as here I go again, then come back and log in again, as I will not stop plugging in new happenings, as sometimes the late things are better, and put the final of many updates to bed until after the witching hour, which after all is kinda an Irish thing. Enough. Enjoy both these posts and the parties they tell about, and most of all thanks much for reading, even if it takes some fighting through. Blogger Joe Winter). .
<Shoop, here it finally is on the events, needed to be done before the cows come home, even in Irish time zones>
Johnnies Bar in River Falls is truly Irish, maybe more than most any, as we presume is everyone there, both staff and patrons, and it will show all day today, or most. The inexpensive beer not only on this holiday but every day is priced far beyond the green variety, and can beat almost everything in River Falls and indeed everything elsewhere around in any cities of size in the region. Things get underway shortly before noon with a veritable Irish band, and there was to be more music that evening with a country group, music of different styles but often similar tone and instruments played, but originating in two different continents, and even with that both seem to sound somewhat like folk, as the orientation of all these musical orchestrations have roots that started in earlier years. Ask your grandma, and speaking of early, you might want to get to Johnnie’s before the big rush might hit even more than usual (see why in the next sentence or two) and get a late or extended noon-hour meal, all the food of this day is available later too, of great grub in the style of small pubs that can still crank out exceptional often down-home food at lower prices then any fancy restaurant in any area.
But like so many of the events all through the day they start early and go late, or in some cases or so we thought, especially in hard-hit RF, so yourself hit as many as you can when you get your Irish up, and don’t dally. Get on over. As is more the case now, the sooner you start the more you can squeeze in, but you can’t wait until much into the evening, although in many bars the off-sale hours have been extended up to a few hours. The other options that may prove to be ongoing, and dominate at least for a while, such as pick and delivery, are detailed in another post that will be current not long from now when published on these pages. With it, as will be justified, is this sage advice: There is always tomorrow to indulge in your Irish-ish entrees of interest. And especially for food, it might be best to put off your celebration dinner until Wednesday, when all the late-arriving, virus-wrought ruckus seen yesterday that brought Rock crashing down locally before bands could get off their tour buses — as this was the day the music died — fully settles in. To shift to other ways to get the food to consumer’s plates, and some don’t really have much of it they can find a use for unless donating it to charitable groups such as those that run food pantries everyone thought would deplete fast, bar and grill staff and management and patrons need to adjust to the major changes that caught them off-guard and without a backup plan, as the virus slammed Minnesota first and still foremost, so some eateries quickly started prepping for this, but a few others eastward didn’t quite find themselves ready to pivot on a dime to a large scale, whole-hog system based on only delivery taking over, they just had to shut even that down until Wednesday. But don’t expect most of them to get going early, and also those who don’t open until near noon might push that back and hour or two, logic would dictate, to buy more time to put in place newer and heavily tweaked dinner distribution plans. To conclude, there are still some places where you can eat something tasty and may have many menu choices — and we give a partial list of their names, hey these are not small towns if serving things with more “proof” than food, most all are more grill than bar, and new conditions created concerning consumption of food items, and condiments are a key cause of concern — so we at HudsonWiNightlife will spill the beans on whatever we know, including the few spots where you can get drinks too, likely to be largely on the light side, such as beer that you can bet your hops on will not be poured from taps, and mixed drinks in glasses you touch to your lips, and put back for rinse, are a definite no-no. But people have been asked to in their stay home long before, and those is certain risk groups are especially advised to do this, and there are not many places to go anyway, so why not try your hand at cooking up some of the quality grub of the holiday yourself on Wednesday, and try to get some of the inexpensive Erin-ish eats sold to make Irish recipes that come in all the forms and colors of the rainbow, so to speak, at all grocery stores around Hudson and virtually all in River Falls as they are expected to stay open for obvious reasons to provide food and supplement eateries — although you’d surmise patrons are expected to only go when they need to, get as much as is practical in one trip, and even then not stay long — but the Super Savior Stores might not be legislatively able to chip in and help fill the need. There are two that are part of a regional chain that are now rolling out an elaborate, thorough, all-encompassing delivery program by truck in both their cities, something you might only expect to see in The Cities per se. There are also some time-honored recipes with prior-century art adorning the walls at a few grill and bars, such as the upscale Mallory’s restaurant with rooftop patio, ready for your reference. If these are open.
ALL THE IRISH FOOD, for the most part, is still being sold at those big immediate- area grocery stores and an unknown number of the smaller mom and pop shops to varying degrees of size, more fit to be eaten than some in the Old Country, and is available to be purchased, taken home, prepared and eaten, and the supermarkets that have it discounted, and they are detailed under their own sub-heading further down in this post.
Lord knows the St. Paulites know most of this as it concerns their end, and with every bar and grill in that town, and indeed the rest of Minnesota and beyond, ordered to be shut down because of virus concerns at 5 p.m. pronto, you can bet that all those hoards of people will stream on over to this and other places that surround it, but they will have to look around and do their research to find the relatively few that remain open, and especially when you head back south that’s practically nothing, as that gives mud ducks plenty of time to get here on a wide but crowded freeway. But don’t drink too much as is the typical style of St. Paul on St. Pat’s Day — stick to only a wee, wee bit — as the cops will be out in force on places like I-94 in light of the weekend announcement of closures, which put a damper on Sunday and maybe prompted having an extra beer or two (green in advance?) to drown their sorrows, but hopefully only briefly, or go to church if they are not shutting down services due to dispensations, but don’t stay long. They’ll feel much better toasting St. Patrick’s Day on its arrival, even if the time limit tainted like water that’s gone a wee bit stale (pre-virus). So they’ll get on going well before Bloody Mary time to guzzle as much as they can, as best they can, and as fast as they can. That could keep people away in Minnesota bars come the mid-afternoon, if in a slightly paradoxical way quaff a few beers bring them a sense of clarity and they are no longer green about the dangers and might bolt early, and if they can avoid that very real fear and lead in the way to the bar door and cause more crowding that could increase yet again and spill even bigger onto the sidewalks — have you ever seen even spacious bars like Alary’s packed so tight shoulder-to-shoulder virtually all day that you can’t squeeze in their hallowed doors? — but I don’t know how you cure this dichotomy in this day of social distancing in bars, and even moreo there then is typical. But the cops know all this too, and as people rush to the border in possibly even bigger numbers then usual, whether it be late or even later, (I guess I’ll redact or even retract that original forecast), St. Paulites and other nearby Minnesotans can be thankful for an eastern option and move on the Wisconsin. Hey take the crowding late to the Badger State, we appreciate your money and will accept anyone’s and even their occasional upped Irish, but please do remember to put on extra deodorant early in the day, and yes cologne might help as this is big day and, hey, its OK if you need to borrow a bit of the spray from your wife, girlfriend, mistress or sister — because you know how well people remember what they forgot in the morning and try to make up for it later after pounding a few beers, and then might even digress, like I just did here, to the person on the next bar stool. But don’t do that, travel to places likes Johnnie’s, in River Falls, and also such spots in Hudson, Somerset, New Richmond, Roberts and even extend the road trip a bit more to Hammond, to see what you can find. But back in the Gopher State, you see what can happen when potent Irish whiskey gets involved, not just Wisconsin beer, but crossing the St. Croix River, at the Stillwater Crossing or Hudson, which is far enough south to get murkier, can also yield a much similar consistency than the water that still flows, if just a bit more slowly, in brewing their weaker 3/2 for the odd more weak stomached of Erin? Here’s the proof …
I knew the closing of all restaurants and bars such other places in Minnesota was on, announced by its governor just two days ago amidst a flurry of political attempts to contain virus by executive order, but when combing through the details it was clear it would already take effect on St. Patrick’s Day itself, the busiest bar day of all. But in addition, I just caught wind of the potent proviso the ban would begin at 5 p.m. with the strictness seen at bar time. But it is 5 O’Clock somewhere for Happy Hour, like in certain night spots over here in Wisconsin. By contrast, when we’re travelling the other direction and heading due west like many of us had planned, to get our corned beef and cabbage or cool but tart Irish drinks, and read this right away, you have to rush over there will all the haste of a Twin Citian going the other direction to get our Sunday off-sale. and choose a place on this end of that foreign land. And on the way back make continued haste and head to New Richmond and take in the end of the Irish performance by Hare’s Ear at Mc Cabe’s Shamrock Club, on the near east side, and also get your St. Pat’s button for cheap entry to all the events still standing. The band at that point boards a very intimate stage as it concerns the crowd of lovers of Irish, folk and covers, as even the virus can’t keep this kind of music in a small setting down, starting late afternoon. After all, they are much more entertaining then a reverse name of Ear Hairs would be, and furthermore those hair pieces make it harder to hear, and some in the crowd are old folk and the tunes they are listening to are not that loud anyway — so I guess gotta be a hair band. Just seeing fax on button light up, so rest assured this reviewer will review the bio just coming in quickly, then add some additional info on the band’s direct connection to the McCabe family.
We a bit ago invoked the timeline marker Its Got To Be 5 O’Clock Somewhere, and that’s when people start gathering to get a beer or two before those who crawl in a bit later to the Kozy Korner Pizzeria and Pub, (I tweaked the name a bit just for today), in North Hudson to trek a full mile or two on the notorious and long-running St. Patrick’s Day North Hudson Pub Crawl, a name that when made to crawl off the tongue is almost as exhausting as walking when tipsy. The march will take them to six different bars up and down across the village, at each stop doing what comes naturally to people here in this enclave almost as old as the Old Country, OK that’s an exaggeration worthy of being part of an Irish tale. In that vein, you could also say this from the bartenders, that this event is has as little of a chance off being cancelled as a leprechaun is tall, unlike all those such crawls in St. Paul, and even the band at McCabe’s Shamrock Club, although you know as they say, Ear Hairs last forever, or maybe they don’t as I got that name backwards again. You don’t say. Well now I do, as the elf has grown rapidly toward the wee hours of the day. to prove those Kozy bartenders were way wrong around suppertime, sending them home quite early, as well as the crawl’s drinkers all.
Hudson Tap in downtown Hudson is fairly new, but its format has been honed to a tee by those in the industry who have set it up and run it, because they have experience that goes back years. Uhm, just one thing — they have all kinds of great and varied stuff, volumes of it, and the St. Pat’s Day specials add to that, and they have been running since the weekend, but wait, they took down the sign that listed all the things a day or two ago. Can these bar people see ahead into time? To fill that gap now that it is or was needed, they offer things you don’t often find that include $5 cards yielding credits to play their games that you can win if you’re lucky and get there early and I guess it turned out that was needed, and also holiday drinks that you don’t always find. Some bar comfort food, too, if you lose at gaming, or from just getting the virus and fade fast to find your grip on the console’s gun handle and even on reality loosening, and even worse if Your Favorite Bar is closing hours early. Best to leave faster then the Pinball Wizard’s fingers so you don’t infect anyone since you arrived — but the zombies roaming the screen you just shot.
Paddy Ryan’s in the town of North Hudson is more recent but has always allowed itself to remain traditional Irish though open to the new, thus their signature corned beef and cabbage, thin-sliced but still with body, more tender and almost melting in your mouth then the vast majority, is prized by many. So what can you expect on St. Patrick’s Day for that type of entree that makes it go beyond the holiday and still be available, but in a tweaked manner of the offering on Tuesday, which makes for ad campaign material many a PR man would appreciate, but the format of the food plate is basic enough so you can nod your head knowing the idea is carried out so creatively, and not so fancy to require a bunch suits several meetings to come up with. So it could be the ultimate Irish food form of a combo, or trio? Anyway, the CBC teams up with a succulent full fillet of fish that’s a local favorite, and a side dish befitting the Irish. That’s a creative mix of food that’s all- entree-oriented, and the Big Three Bonanza is something you just don’t see, so we will have to see if Paddy Ryan’s menu brings it back, or tweaks it to yet another format. But to be sure, all three delicacies listed are certainly available separately every day, and this way can be ordered with a yet different side dish of even more Irish fare, of which there are many that vary, to make it possible to use the term Four Horseman, if I can say so, and I do. Even they would be satisfied by the the cool and also hot mixture of a dish that has many different shapes, colors and sizes among its ingredients, as shown on one of their ads.
<You can still have all you can eat of great Irish dishes, but now its best to buy it at stores such as these, then bake it yourself, and later scout harder for some liquor too, but it will>
First, what we found quite late when compiling the listings gleaned while making the rounds to skim signs that enable inclusiveness and as much detailed as possible, and this will be updated almost each hour, scoured quickly to add more data as businesses with different niches within the food and beverage industry open up shop at times that range throughout the morning or more, as there is a need to supplement what could not be found out on short notice late last night, and I will try to get it up as soon as I can, as fast as some of the applicable delivery services of stores who do bought food, my Local Heroes, (more on that running joke some other time, invented by one of the main managers at San Pedro on Main Street, not the Caribbean, which also shuttered quite early on Tuesday night, who I have known since he was an eighth grader when he began bunking at our house for a several-year period and I must say that under partially Irish upbringing he blossomed, although he would probably use a more manly term. So couldn’t get rid of him, and now he’s showing me up — bloggers don’t get any respect, maybe because of long rants like this and since I still such trivia to the boot now, such tricks are for kids). I will try to view of the markets that have the best prices for you and your wallet on the best post-St. Patrick’s Day-food, mostly in Hudson and also touching on River Falls mostly, and New Richmond:
— Family Fresh Market in both RF and NR is unveiling an extensive grocery delivery program at just the time most needed, with a block of substantial membership time to be low-priced for each period (annually that is) of usage and billed at just under $50. A reasonable separate fee is charged for each delivery/miles, and the truck will only take the goods so far, that being the case in New Richmond too. Much bigger Hudson has lost out, way too far away from both cities, sitting in the middle between them and also sliding a wee way westward, and has no comparable in-house service from a grocer — except maybe its very own Jimmy Johns and a few other such fast-food-ish faves that followed their lead in mastering the business of delivering more than pronto — but to call them real grocers is quite a stretch. Their Hudson store is somewhat centrally located in this much bigger and also a quite sprawling city, but has hours far too short to appease any Night Owl — as such a trek would take too much time to get there anyway in order to meet stringent delivery timetables, especially for the actual grocers that are the only other option. To wit: The service they provide gets food you order to the front door fast, almost in real time and fully freaky fast? But this is not Jimmy Johns, as in the fantasy realm its drivers go knocking on the front door before the delivery-request call is even made, but might as well have been. The Jimmy Johns in River Falls is just across the main drag from Family Fresh, and there could quickly become a healthy and spirited battle for your burger buck, and all the other favorite foods for which you are willing to pay, Irish thus included and other greenish options are whole bins of dozens of odd-looking and exotic fruits, most but not all from the tropics, and of all colors, shapes and sizes, just for a change of pace in taste, which I found to be different and delicious based on the few I tried to not only eat but pronounce. A point: Hey, they have to them to your fridge quickly to remain fresh, using delivery that needs to fast and not far and nearly furious as they are you know mostly tropical in nature, but not too fast that pieces of the at times narly fruit that can be almost charming misshapen, and flip out of the back when there’s hole in the road or speed bump that needs to be traveled to get to places like Buffalo Wild Wings, its loading dock or even just the parking lot, and cause the cops to raise up an eyebrow or two, and just as important the food is trashed and we cannot waste it like we have almost always done. Sound like a few far-fetched scenarios from a sci- fi studio that places more value that’s over-bloated as a fish dead from the virus, truly as health risk, in studiousness over packing action– did I say that about my prose? — but a failure to change practices just might mean too few Classic Buffalo Wings available to fashion many of their two-fers each Tuesday, and on the one just past, that was offered up again, this time as a spicy alternative to mild corned beef, and same game plan was used to pull of another Taco Tuesday, and in the latter case they got the bulk of their time actually put in, but not at BWW, which normally goes to midnight, but in this case again it was indeed the witching hour, a term that again has partial Irish Old Country origin, at least in part due the various forms of pagan presence that were there in the past. Got the keep the law even in a Virus World, and maybe be even more adamant about it then.
But back to business on the fate of these few stores, this competition could bring you even more bang for your buck and in the long run benefit, too, the very-similar markets that used to just bag them for you can now simply haul them all your way by placing the load in their back seat or such area. Again the point of this shoot from the hip analysis and that’s all it is, being for likely much more than a year or so this New Normal will stretch out the systems and methods used by all grocers not just the ones named above, as an example of how we get our food, all of it, from the shelf to our home appliances so they can take over the job of managing freshness, all in the steps calculated to effectively and efficiently keep the virus at bay, while keeping the crispness that we semi-spoiled clan of Americans demand and have come accustomed to over time, in indeed virtually everything perishable from fresh fruit and vegetables to fresh ground beef and look like they could have been ravaged by the killer virus like can be done by one of those well noted Midwest tornados, no mulligans. Cannibal sandwiches may, literally fly in Wisconsin, hey the beef was raised here and in most cases “local” is a key to intelligently using things like proximity to win the freshness war, and smart distribution that does not involve trekking food that could be at risk over multiple state lines or God Forbid, and not the now aptly-named-it-would-seem death metal group, a foreign border. This is far more important then your golf score and what’s on that green.
Winning the Battle of the Bug when it comes to keeping it from tainting our food will require all the creativity we are known for here in this country, and around these parts more than most other places, much like the mental acuity that will be needed to develop a vaccine, and both will need money thrown at them, one more than than other. Closer to the start of the food chain on the farm fields will be just as crucial a key, and with Wisconsin and Minnesota’s farmers, researchers, ag agents and experts, even the young farmhands learning ropes concerning all different forms of the trade at UW-River Falls, yes the Falcons, as they’ve even rivaled the Badgers in that kind of thing and competition can breed much success in many more worlds then sports, and maybe having a minor there in how to more quickly and efficiently develop and produce all the virus test kits that are needed. Got milk, you might not without farmers in our two states, and now their responsibilities double down, as you can imagine the microbe-related mess the could result today from a really dirty barn, and if it was drunken by people who got it from America’s Dairyland? That could shut down a village the size of Somerset or Roberts, and conversely, all the farms in St. Croix County, big and even small, fully rural or bordering on bigger Hudson where I’m guessing almost half of the population base in the county is found, and that’s people in big houses, not cows in barns that are getting better and more sanitary, are all keys to feeding the state, county and even the world that now even more is becoming as one, as every bit of food even if its just a few pounds that would be lost now its made vital by the virus, and every scrap and crumb is valuable.
Way to the east, in Hudson, north on the I-94 frontage road, is a store that methinks considering its focus on all things related to health and fitness and wellness and indeed the environment, maybe should float a storefront a mile further east onto the St. Croix River, when it was in its cleaner days due to the backing at a Major League-level, befitting-Twins-not-Brewers, hard-to-get and therefore prized declaration of National Wild and Scenic River, on the support of a lawmaker from the Gopher State, not the Badger State. Now I will now stop rambling like a stir-crazy Mountain Man, and define my point. That clean water grows great produce and on both ends of this huge planet and having largely taken care of its environment much better than us are the Irish, who seem to be Lucky about at least that facet of their life, to a degree by any means and maybe it is a God-given gift to these very religious to people and their quite matriarchal society to be nurturing of all things including the land and the waters that flow through it. Or what do I know? I do know, or again at least strongly suspect, that this a shared value shared with the stewards of the Old Country and its nature, and the people who manage and staff Fresh at Fresh and Natural Foods, again in Plaza 94, who appear to be using all these facts, and/or opinions, to include in their inventory four or five quite exotic Irish food varieties, the exact number depending on how you define exotic, that cut across many of the major food groups.