Shepherd's Pie

It's nasty today in San Francisco. It's storming hard, and things like leaves and plastic bags are blowing up into the sky, as opposed to down towards the ground. I trekked three blocks through this mess to an Irish Pub and had a bowl of shepherd's pie and a pint. Possibly the best tasting lunch I've had this year.

While my ethnicity is more Irish than anything else, I wasn't raised by Irish parents, and really wasn't aware of this particular dish until recent years. I've become an enthusiast about it, though...which is somewhat surprising to me, as I'm not a big fan of potatoes, and Shepherd's Pie is more potato than anything else. Had it Sunday for dinner, as a matter of fact, at Slattery's Restaurant in Piermont, NY, right on the Hudson River, below Nyack (a lovely place to visit, by the way, for anyone traveling through the area). The restaurant was the choice of my birth mother, who is half Irish (in talking about herself and my late birth father, she'll say, "I'm more German than Irish; your father was more Irish than German."), but certainly a good choice. I started with a chicken and vegetable soup, which was awesome. The Shepherd's Pie was very satisfying, although not the best I've ever eaten. My birth mother actually makes one of the better ones I've ever had, but she doesn't make it ... Read more

About a once a year thing for me. My mother made a version that would have been rejected by inmates of Buchenwald, and it scarred me deeply. I can and have made it myself, but I'm not impressed by the result. On the rare occasion I eat this, its invariably in a pub, and its invariably less than satisfactory. Although how much of that is the dish, and how much the memory I'm not sure.