This just in, or call it breaking news. Can someone please give me a break, and not put the brakes on, if trying to locate these activities themselves, as the Easter week is well upon us. As far as holiday church services, the few that are still “open” to the public because of virus concerns, the following is how you can have your religion Fixx and eat it too — if just using a little creativity in finding it — to dole out the jelly beans and chocolate bunnies and perhaps via the band by that name, So One Thing (or should I say Thong) Leads to Another, so to Place Your Bid In, that came within an Irish lasses blink of an eye from playing a concert at the Hudson half-outdoors Band Shell — these contingencies just might end up being your ticket to one of the few remaining live music options that could still be available, if certain strict rules are complied with. It’s just a stone’s throw away from the beautiful St. Croix River on the north end of Lakefront Park. Did I mention lass? In the post-St. Patrick Day download, the Irish Eyes aren’t quite smilin’ as they feel the sting of now having their own holiday, in its various forms and done in their way, taken away from them as fast as other viruses turn your corned beef and cabbage into mush, literally overnight; the time it took Hudson’s economy to tank then float down the St. Croix before anyone knew what hit them. So what do all things Erin do when they truly get their Irish up? They just extend the holiday — go for it Guinness — maybe all through the official 40 days of Easter, as counted by the Irish Catholics who love and live their religion, so both holidays can Come Together, Right Now. Items pulled from various local menus show that Irishness prevails, one of the few times in its history, and all things green, St. Paddie’s Day, Easter and then even Earth Day, take command of the kitchen and what ends up on your plate. Mix and match this type of this food with the Easter favorite goodies that now abound, and you can still double-down and have a two-for-one, or more, although possibly only via the Facebook offerings.
So this entry point for allowing you to max-out on today’s holiday happenings, and really place Saturday night llve, (OK, maybe not “live” in all cases), is the Easter Vigil as practiced by Catholics and most Episcopals. Especially, if revelers have the means to look beyond virus considerations and icy snow now falling and elect to travel, (hey, I know this isn’t really OK), thus taking advantage of the ever-falling gas prices. and stop by for a quick but very filling, in-and-out big meal made by, say, both your grandma in Forest Lake and your mom in Woodbury. Shepard’s Pie versus apple pie?
Now the stage is set for a description for the first-viewing Easter observance of 2020, as done locally, with others still hanging on to get the bugs out of their audio-visual technology, now needed more than ever by them. That can cost money, especially in a smaller-sized, tight-knit church building and possibly more seriously, a potentially big financial hit because of lack of money in the collection basket
<<Ahead of the curve concerning the rest of the Village, and their ‘great big neon broadway sign’ from above>>
With the flood of messages that have been put out as eatery ads, and we won’t even include the remnant of those old once-a-mile, small-cardboard scrims, Village Inn has been way ahead of the curve in what they are putting on, what’s essentially their “great big neon broadway sign,” to reference Bon Jovi. It even had offered, mostly-earlier-than-any, customers the service of a go-to special is for the time-being out; hey must taste fantastic to be that well purchased, in what has not been the case for so many other places. Everyone has a new twist on what they offer these days, why they are different from all the rest. I was schooled a few weeks earlier on this, by two guys out in the enhanced, give-them-what-they-now-want-and-need and partly enclosed patio. When talking to these vintage village people, who actually are Minnesotans who thus now accompany the old school Italians, and are only the start of people who kept coming and lotsa loving such things as the especially caring-for-cars drive-through line, for great fried and broasted chicken (called Californian as well as southern fried and even on to Chicago, to team with themes above and below). It’s almost within a waddle of the place you pulled in, where there in addition have been the No Quarter of 25 for $25 wings, or 25 and Six to Four, with change. The Village led others by being open 15 or then 17 or then 19 hours. There of course is the Triple Threat of Walleye, Walleye, Walleye, quite well marketed when considering that the other go-to-place for such food closed a few months back, Tuesday tacos and max mex, and other fantastic items that include many burger choices that go far behind just a paddy, and will no doubt create consumer traffic well into 2021.
Also in place st St. Patrick’s Church on Saturday around 8 p.m. All the Mass times, as they have always been in place throughout Sunday mornings, call be live-streamed on Facebook, or use something such as an On Demand function later Sunday and so on. Big Catholic churches in River Falls to the southeast, and New Richmond to the northeast, are doing much the same thing, and the two in Stillwater that form the end of the triangle also have vigils.
— Likewise, in my typical walks around scenic North Hudson, (I’m nearing 60, so better make that number singular, and only once around the block, or I might end up Meeting My Maker prematurely. This came to mind, as I made the swing out in the Boonies as part of Phase Two, “When I Came Across a Young Man, With a Fiddle, Playing It Hard,” and I know Charlie Daniels is more than just some ol’ country preacher). The church I encountered halfway in Phase Two is called Bible Baptist, smack dab in the middle of the village. and they also have set up a similar option, to access the service via Facebook and beyond, starting at 10:30 a.m.
With very few entertainment options currently, read a book? Or a cookbook? During times when docs say even your local, low-grade newsprint daily, after being handled by dozens of people before it gets to you, can carry a virus much worse than an annoying stomach bug?
So what to do? Always wanted to unlock your true culinary self, and get healthy to boot? Whip through a Fresh and Natural store flyer, ready for your taking right when you walk in the door of what is a spacious foyer for social dining considerations, that cuts to the chase and doesn’t give you loads of of unnecessary verbage to sift through. After all, these days we seem to be having more and more contraints on our time, and at Fresh and Natural there’s a store design that smacks of functionality, not being a monument for some architects to themselves. The aisles are well arranged, little wasted space, although social distancing will always be respected here, and unlike the big box stores you don’t have to cover an area the size of a football field to pick up what you need. And the food is healthy for all sorts of reasons, and today more than ever we all need to be watchguards of that for ourselves on various fronts, and its great to get a little help to steer you the right way.
So when did all this extra need get going?
Just a bit ago on St. Patricks’ Day, and quickly into the early evening, reams of stores of all types were told they must shut down pronto, as in the usual start of places having half-price appetizers. So why not get much healthier food to boot, and at the same time take an absolute, total pass for that day on the chance to unveil your Irish? As go home and go to bed before any of the those cool Irish musicians even start setting up their stages. Your full 24 hours of Erin simply have to wait for another day and might be quite off into the future. So how does the green go forward from here and triumph?
It thus starts with food, and enter the picture the Fresh and Natural locations in Hudson and Shoreview. Like birthday parties that become lengthy observances, like a virtual fulltime job, and I know this from some friends who seriously do want it to be all that, things extend with regular ongoing celebrations in what becomes an — official they’ll tell you — bonafide birthday month. The Irish emulate that when their favorite holiday is on a Monday and thus into Tuesday morning, and St. Patrick’s Day actually starts for them with corned beef and cabbage — or a host of lesser hyped meals that I myself will hype in a minute via Fresh and Natural — on the previous Thursday or early Friday for sure, with dinner, lunch or even breakfast, (and yes Virginia, of the dozens of intriguing Irish eats you can easily make yourself, there are even quite a few for when you rise in the morning and need a boost to hit the very ground running as to dodge all those newly enabled leprechauns who don’t ever seem to be more than knee-high. Plenty more such yarns of leprechauns acting up in future posts).
Local nightclubs have followed suit with their St. Patrick’s Day revisited drink specials, hardly any need to dig into your pockets for anything but a wee bit of change — and each and every O’Donnell loves that — where even the most stout beer cost is slashed on the 17th of each and every month. So everyone is Irish an additional 12 days a year. And add another such food date when Paddy Ryan’s, not far down the highway from Fresh and Natural, pulls out all the stops not only in March, but also exactly six months later for a half-St. Patrick’s Day. And the food is bountiful, never a “half patty.”
<<And if you can’t make it then, and now to finally cut to the chase, here’s how that Fresh and Natural flyer saved that day, through extending the window to be by all means Irish.>>
— Colcannon is a long-back traditional dish made with mashed potatoes and cabbage, milk and butter, and sometimes with leeks and bacon added for flavor and just for fun, or a primer for cooks who shop then chop for a veganized version. It is called just as delicious as the meatier version above, including the middle two items of the six, which is expected to be central to cooking plans for June Dairy Month. And come that time, you can even find a whole boatload of filed-card recipes range of things, some of which I had not heard of before, and smack dab in the middle of that in a veritable laundry list of how you can use the aforementioned leeks. But as far as the colcannon, the whole recipe is featured in the March version of the Fresh and Natural newsletter. It is said to make great comfort food, now and later. Options are to use tempeh bacon, and coconut butter for a creamy consistency, according to Fresh and Natural, for a great plant based dish.
— Now is the time for homemade saurkraut with garlic dill, as the Irish meet the Germans — they just had their food week too — as my family used to say and ponder. Not only is it called nice and easy, it is filled with probiotics, which are vital to keeping everyone’s bodies healthy, as the immune system is in our gut, and healthy bacteria from those probiotics is an aid to keep the good flora of bacteria in the stomach area at a good count. Uhm, probiotics in the form of pills? It’s also beneficial to add them to diet in the form of fermented foods. Homemade sauerkraut keeps well in the fridge for a few months. Add it to salads as a tangy topper, (and then can do without too much cheese, or heavy sauces), or use it in various sandwiches (don’t rely, again, too heavily on cold cuts).
One, two, three, four, Cellar’s as a liquor store has all the numbers and sheer size to be your sum-total of each and every holiday revelry. The local “Cellars” is intruigally named since it is “up “on The Hill instead of being “down” at at your friend’s basement man cave. And unlike that place and its few couches, Cellar’s has a showroom the size of full basketball courts, and not Down There at your guys limited bar. But we all have changed our habits because of virus impact, so all to be viewed at his home is King James footage from back in the day when he got started, and Cellar’s at that time was already open, then known as Hudson Liquor. But hey, we need more than dribbling, sorry about the pun, and this is when you go to Cellar’s and can get bottles of wine for as little as $3.99! So we draw from all of these spots, their celebrations and more, as virus considerations mean things like St. Patrick’s Day revelry are compromised and have to be regaged and rescheduled for later, even much later. Which of course — and yes I am finally getting around to a point — is where the selection and pricing at Cellar’s comes to the rescue as the summer holidays continue to unfold, had already been a prime seller at their store of all things that started Irish, think enough different whiskey brands from that isle to fill a space equal to that huge freezer in your buddy’s man cave, then also Easter. (And I’ve thus went to “edit” and added this part of the content on a holiday theme for Cinco, mom and pop day and believe you me their faves are very different and cross a gender gap beyond which flavor of champagne they should sip as dad, sorry to say, slinks to the end of the counter and orders all those ingredients for a Bloody from a hottie). Then Cellar’s redacted these and other offerings to fit a patriotic festival from below the Rio Grande, led by well, Rio herself and Duran Duran? And hey, tit for tat, that will carry forward to later on the Independence Day of another sort, ours. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, possibly the first time since Washington’s presidency that HudsonWiNightlife has been not only on time but before it … To that end, you can get a bottle of wine for just $3.99, for that post-Easter toast, or later for a hot summer night on the river. And to be kosher in this huge facility, there is Mogan David to boot. The people at this store have teamed up with Hop and Barrell on a far-afield trek to taste their own special brews, and pick the ones out for sale especially at their places business. And they have had the drinks of Cinco de Mayo covered too with cupboards full of brews.
— The “Casanova” himself as part of the Hudson Historic Liquors name would love it, so Irish as to be traditional or even rare for St. Paddie’s or redacted to make it American for the Fourth, as in American Irish? Shelves and shelves of many brands of Irish whiskey, some with often long names I can’t even pronounce — and adding choices well beyond the Jamison everybody knows about, although to be clear there are a few of these varieties that sport flavorings and subtle color tints — and fill shelves by the dozens in a dedicated area toward the back, and having been there for months, to extend the window for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations that were cut short, to the length of a potato growing season, regardless of the weather. Irish whiskey is usually batched in a truly original way as far as number of steps, and the window to try them in the U.S. and all over predates the days of colonization, so when the time comes, use and indulge them with patriotism in mind (that’s convenient). And as far as things go, no immigration no Irish whiskey here. Things to be grateful for. The recipes go back almost 700 years. So get you and your taste “buds” going …
— The Northern Liquors store along Crest View Drive has been doing great business, and even though its not quite going viral per se, has a big beer and liquor vault to offer that in a rectangular sense rivals the size of the entire rest of their facility. One whole side of shelving going up front near the cash register is devoted to the dozens of very dynamic varieties of different tomato-juice infused ingredients, that are brewed, distilled and yes even grown and harvested, to welcome in a Cinco summer and meaningful Bloody Mary mantra and indeed keep it going through July Fourth and further, aided by little four-packs of themed drinks, some bottled and all quaint as can be, for far less then the fingers on your hand. Again, the numbers game, and if Johnnie is not careful with the fireworks and his fingers, then they’d be fewer and symbolize even more of a discount … OK we won’t go there.