Sherry Chapmanby Sherry Chapman
First published in April/May, 2008, Volume 5, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
It’s finally gettin’ warm enough to hang the laundry outside to dry. It’s a lot better than hangin’ it in the cellar. That cellar is as eerie as the moors in old County Cork after dark, if yer unlucky enough to be out there then. Sometimes Miss Lizzie will be in a part of the cellar where I can’t see her, and she’ll jump out at me, laughin’ her head off at my takin’ fright. ‘Tis awful. Every time I go down there I never know if she’s gonna be poppin’ out at me or not. I told Mrs. Borrden, but of course she can’t do nothin’ about it. She tries to tell me if Lizzie is in the house or not before I go down. That helps some. But there’s been times Mrs. Borrden tells me Miss Lizzie’s up in her room and I’ll go down the stairs calm and collected, and there she’ll be—jumpin’ out at me. I swear the girl’s got the Devil himself in her.
Miss Lizzie’s birthday is comin’ up, and she don’t need to think she’s gettin’ anything from me.
I do make a special supper on that night. I make sure she has her favorites, tripe and orange sherbet. Mrs. Borrden always gets her a cake at the bakery, all decorated in blue flowers with her name on the top and her age in big letters right in the middle. Every year Mrs. Borrden laughs more and more when she shows me the cake.
This year Miss Lizzie will be 32 years old. I don’t care what they say, she ain’t no ‘girl.’ (In fact, she’s more like a man in a lotta ways, but that’s another ‘Bridget’s Kitchen’.) She’s an old maid is what, and she’ll be an old maid till the day she dies, with her and her nasty ways.
Anotherr event I take a real likin’ to that’s comin’ up is Mr. and Mrs. Borrden’s anniversarry. On June 6 they’ll be married for 27 years. Older than me, i’tis. They’re a nice lovin’ couple. Oh, Miss Lizzie will tell anyone who’ll listen that they can’t stand each otherr, and how they never show any affection. It’s not true. The only time they fight is when Miss Lizzie or Miss Emma are in the room, and most of the time it’s them that’ll start it. They’re plenty affectionate toward one another, I’ll tell you. I’ll just say some things in this house do go bump in the night.
Well, I’m gonna tell you how to make a real popular Irish dish. It’s Mr. Borrden’s favorite, but I don’t think it’s because of the food.
Usually we’ll make this back home at the beginning of the Celtic New Year, that falls about on Halloween in America. But I make it a lot more often than that, to keep Mr. Borrden happy for once with my “indigestible Irish starch.”
COLCANNON
Yer gonna need:
4 cups of mashed potatoes (left overs are good to use)
1½ cups of cabbage that’s cooked and cut up fine
½ cup of butter
½ cup of cream
One big onion, chopped real fine
A few strips of bacon
14 small spoons of salt
Just a pinch of pepper (white if you can afford it and the store carries it)
A bunch of coins, real clean
Ya take a big cooking pan and fry yer bacon, then yer onion. Throw out the bacon and the grease. (I don’t tell Mr. Borrden that part.) Add all yer ingredients together, except the cabbage and coins. Cook it over heat that’s low while you blend it together. Put the heat up to medium and add yer chopped cabbage. This’ll have a pale green cast to it. Don’t go gettin’ scared. Give it a stir now and then until it’s warm enough to eat. Put yer coins in and eat with caution. This’ll feed about 6 people. (It’s best if you don’t haf ta furrnish the coins. Mrs. Borrden always gives them to me from her allowance.)
May the blessing of God’s soft rain
be on you, falling gently on your head,
refreshing your soul with the sweetness
of summer flowers newly blooming.
