Crubeen Disaster -- Cork, Ireland

I've been enjoying the colors of the Kenny garden. The audacious, fiery red of the poppies is especially brilliant. I love the strains of orange in the crepe paper petals and the blackish purple pistil tipped with grey. I adore the way the poppy walks the line between delicacy and defiance. 

The morning was quiet. Relaxed. Slow. Full of cheese and fruit and coffee. Roisin had asked me to finish a painting for her, so I even got to wield some acrylic for a few minutes. As my host had work all morning (and a good part of the afternoon), I decided that today would be the day. The day I pursued an expert challenge. The day I cooked crubeens. 

Corned pig feet. 

I stopped at a gallery on route to the English Market and ambled about for nearly an hour, soaking up the expressive and unique landscapes and portraits. 

This is a special tool for grabbing sugar cubes. I imagine it would be a part of an old-fashioned quirky nick-knacks shop. Like the places where we go to buy tomato corers and the wire stabbing tool used exclusively to wrest pickles from their jars. 

Silver tongs for grasping asparagus

After purchasing corned crubeens from a couple of different vendors at the English Market, I moseyed back to the house. There's something about walking around museums and markets that wears me out like no hike up Liberty Cap ever did. I put the delectable (I'd been assured by ALL the online recipes and ALL the vendors that crubeens are darn tasty) feet into the fridge and settled down with my kindle to wait for Roisin. The door clanged and the puppies barked, so I rubbed my bleary eyes and tiptoed down the creaky stairs.

"Want to come to pick up Izzy?" Roisin gathered her things for her childminding job.

"Yes!" I love the children of other people nearly as much as I love the dogs of other people. And Izzy had two dogs, although the one that looked like a distinguished caterpillar was also possessed by a beastly temperament. Which I found unfortunate indeed.

 Back at the house, I tenderly removed the feet from the fridge. I used this recipe CRUBEENS , but I substituted oats for breadcrumbs.

Feet boiled for four hours in fresh thyme, parsley, carrots and onions? What's not to like?

When it started getting really nasty... about 3 hours in. Roisin returned from her childminding job and had to open all the doors and windows. I'd been sitting in the kitchen as the rank smell began to permeate the house, so I hardly noticed. Which was lucky for me, but I felt terrible for Roisin. Pointer number one: Cook crubeens in a well ventilated area.

After four hours of boiling

We didn't really want to deal with biting around the bones later, so I decided to debone the boiling hot, sticky mess.

The dogs started to get very excited. Constant whining and jumping. They were nearly frantic at times.

The left dish is full of bones. The right dish is full of... skin? Fat? Don't tell me, I'd rather not know?

Hoping to make our dinner remotely appetizing, we covered them in oats and eggs and popped the abomination into the oven for another 40 minutes.

Roisin's Slovenian friend brought wine to help us through the evening. She grew up with parents who ate this stuff all the time, although she never touched it. Wise girl.

"What do you think went wrong?"

"Nothing. This is how all the recipes said they were supposed to be."

"But there's no meat. It's all just fat."

"I usually like fat. And I love pig. But this... this is rather vile." 

"Right, so. We just spent 6 hours cooking a lovely dish for the dogs. Slainte."

"Slainte."

Roisin's friend did her best to make bits and pieces edible by frying them up and trying to turn them into crackling...

But it was still vile. Bunny and Daisy feasted for days.