You can't hide those Irish eyes.

I awoke, and it was Sunday morning in Central New York. Not much different than waking up on Sunday morning in Dublin. Except for about an 80% humidity difference. And on this particular Sunday morning, like many before it, I went for a run.

I ran down a hill, then up a hill. Then the hill kept going up, so I stopped and wandered home. Yeah.

I got excited on the walk home about eating bread. It’s Sunday! I get to eat bread! I wonder what we have in the cupboards. I wonder what they have at the Farmer’s Market. I wonder if I have any money to buy bread, or if I’ll have to grovel and perform magic tricks.

Then an even more surprising thought arrived: I’m not in Dublin. It is not Lent. You do not pass Go and you do not collect $200.

But I’m a creature of habit, and I have come to know and love Sundays as Worship of Bread days. And because of my unfailing stubbornness, that’s the way it will stay with me.

Even though there’s a pretty massive water barrier between here and there, a lot of Irish can be seen in my Ithaca life. I was potting seeds on my porch and realized the sunflower selection I had bought was called Irish Eyes. Because the middle of the flower grows green little buds.

But that’s just like claiming those silly neon green buttons that have clovers on them to be authentic. It’s just politics. Its politics, and they’re now growing roots on my front porch.

And when I found myself at lunch with the old man today, we were served our meals and I saw his eggs and steak platter with grilled and buttered bread. And I said, “Ahhh jeez, that looks yummy. I want some! Can I have your toast? Please? I’ll trade you a tater. PLEASE?!?!?” And after judging glares from the toddler sitting at a neighboring table, my dad pointed out that my own meal (a grilled cheese sandwich, or in Irish pub talk, toastie), was loaded with bread as it was.

So I ate my toastie. And it made me feel… so, toastie inside. Then I ate my dad’s toast too. And when I got home again, I became bored with lack of housemates or cable TV., and so there was only one thing to do: make toast.

This time I ground up and sprinkled some sugar and cinnamon sticks on top.

I find myself on the porch with the Irish Eyes. They can’t see me yet, they are still in the soil. But I have a feeling they will be popping out soon. Irish eyes have a tendency to do that: pop. Either out of skulls from 40 years of alcoholism, or from soil in a pot from love and water and Ithaca sunlight.

I find myself defending my eating habits to my new co-workers downtown. I am now employed at a groovy little restaurant that serves only vegetarian food. And there’s a big mammal on the front window. And they have a tendency to pounding out new cookbooks about every two years. Any guesses? Yeah, I work THERE.

When I told them I was studying Nutrition and had been a vegetarian for 2 years, they had such high hopes for me…

I find myself thinking about my bread relationship in real depth. Am I too emotionally available? Should I create distance? How much is too much? When does no actually mean no?

I find that not a lot in my life is as developed as the sincere and relentless need for complete and instant satisfaction. Which sounds insane, but it’s not. It’s like when my housemate talks to his cat. He knows the cat is listening and I know it’s listening but everyone else knows he is crazy. And he is. But he’s happy. His complete and instant satisfaction: kitty conversation.

Whatever floats your boat.

My Irish Eyes are thirsty.

Reverse Culture Shock: ranting from a mad woman

So I made bruschetta.

And no one died.

No one complained either. I guess you could call it a success. But because there was pesto and spices, my teeth were peppered (literally) with little black specks.

No one told me, naturally. And because I might have added just a pinch too much garlic (I have this theory, and amateur culinary practice, that anything can be improved by adding more garlic), I noticed that no one would go near my mouth for days. Not that this is out of the ordinary, just that it would have helped. Again, with the specks. So it was a peppered success. Success peppered with… humiliation.

So I’ve decided to switch paths. I now sit in a nice little coffee place in college town, Ithaca. They are playing The Doors. The people at the table next to me are looking at post cards. I’m drinking a mug full of something called a Milky Way. And Jim’s voice is lulling me into a faraway time and place where I was looking at his grave eating a French baguette.

Must have been in another life.

I’m trying to remember the last time I ate bread. I’m trying to remember the last time I plucked my eyebrows. Some people say, you can’t go back home. Some people, like elderly Cornell Alum who I catered for over the weekend, say that bread should never be served without a toaster. Or fat-free butter.
I don’t know if I’m going to cut it in this business. But I remember, and it was when I made a caprese sandwich in my summer house. I put too much vinaigrette on the tomatoes, and it made the white sliced bread squishy. But I’m learning, slowly and surely. You just can’t go back home.

Until that day I had my caprese, I’d realized I hadn’t bought a loaf of bread since returning state-side.

What have I been doing for the last 3 weeks? I have become numb to the hunger for sweet and savory goodness. Which I just learned refers to meat.

Is it because America is filled with advertisements and appointments and complications that keep your mind from wandering to genuine, deep, inner core of our actual perceptions and emotions? And hunger?

Yes. Obviously.

So now that I don’t crave bread, I don’t know what I crave. I crave a life where I want to eat bread all day long. And stumble down a canal, or up a Spanish rooftop, or read my blog to an Irish ear.

Something out of a movie.

So about that crossed path. I want to learn how to bake. So I never have to buy a .79 cent of white bleached bread again.

But only for people that will alert me when my teeth are filled with pepper.