With the Covid-19 pandemic preventing large social gatherings and adjusting every in-door area, the annual celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in St. Louis will be far from normal: no parades for the Irish community to gather and share in their culture, no bars open for adults to partake in a hefty pint of Guinness, and no safe way to have large Irish family dinners or other annual celebrations for the holiday. While many will see Wednesday, March 17 as yet another typical day due to the combination of spring break and quarantine, there is still one communal and accessible way to celebrate and share in Irish culture and pride: food.

For those who are currently quarantined or prefer a nice night in with a home cooked meal, I recommend corned beef with cabbage. A very simple but extremely flavorful dish, this meal is a staple of Irish culture. 

While many recipes of this Irish staple are the same, there are a few key steps that can set your corned beef and cabbage meal from the rest. Above all else, take your time. Whether you’re cooking in an old fashioned crock pot or a new and improved Instant Pot, your corned beef must be cooked low and slow. Corned beef can be a tough slice of meat, and it is best to take your time and allow all of the flavors to seep in, but to give it an easy, tender feel. For the best texture of meat, cook for upwards of 8 hours; if you don’t have all day to cook, 3 hours at the minimum at a higher temperature. 

The second most essential step for your corned beef and cabbage meal is your spices. Any store from Schnucks to Walmart to Whole Foods and even Amazon will carry something labeled as a “pickling spice.” For those who cannot find pickling spice at the ready or are not buying pre-packaged corned beef, your spices and seasonings mix should consist of a solid ratio of mustard seed, celery seed, coriander, bay leaf, dill seed, allspice, and peppercorns, with pinches of salt and pepper added along the way. For the best flavor, sprinkle or rub your cut of meat with the spices right before roasting.

Lastly, you can’t have a good corned beef and cabbage meal without the cabbage (and other vegetables). Obviously, you’ll need one large cabbage head, accompanied with 10 small round potatoes, and 5 whole carrots shaved and cut into 3 inch slices (or baby carrots if that's your preference). It is important to note that excess flavor and seasoning from the corned beef will cook into the vegetables, so there is no need for additional salting or flavoring. 

The key step for your vegetables is to add them towards the tail end of your cook. Potatoes and carrots vary, but once your meat is under an hour left of cooking, you can throw them in until they’re tender. As for the cabbage, throw in the head (preferably halved or quartered at this point) into the pot when you have around 20 minutes left to keep it from getting mushy. Once the cook is done, remove the corned beef for slicing and prepping, leave the vegetables in the pot for easy removal, and enjoy!

My dear friend and fellow Irishman Luke Duffy recommends classic Irish soda bread as a side option, as the consistency is good to sop up any leftover broth from your crock pot, and the simple flavor works as both a palate cleanser or a utensil for your corned beef. 

Any basic recipe for soda bread can be found online, but Duffy recommends using three cups of all purpose flour, one cup of cake flour, two tablespoons of sugar, one and one half teaspoons of baking soda, one and one half teaspoons of cream of tartar, one and one half teaspoons of salt, two tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, and two full cups of buttermilk. With your oven preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, whisk together your dry ingredients, and then work the butter into said dry ingredients, breaking it into smaller pieces. 

Once mixed, pour in most of the buttermilk and form the mixture with your hands, later adding the rest of the buttermilk as needed to form the dough. From then on, transfer the dough to a baking sheet with parchment paper, cut a large X in the top of the unleavened loaf with a knife, and bake for 30 minutes, or until it starts to brown. With the flavor and consistency of an old fashioned Irish biscuit, your homemade meal will be complete.

While nothing beats a home cooked meal and essential family bonding time in the kitchen, there are more options for those who prefer to dine in or take out, including O’Connell’s Pub. Laden with green bricks on its exterior, dark green umbrellas for patio seating, and inside decor that looks as if it was plucked right out of the country of Ireland itself, O’Connell’s is a sight to see; you can’t go wrong with an in-person lunch or dinner. With an elegant indoor bar and table seating and a very simple food menu, O’Connell’s is a great place for comfort, nostalgia, and old-fashioned Irish food. Personally, I recommend choosing from their reuben, corned beef, roast beef, or salami sandwiches (or a good old-fashioned cheeseburger which they’re especially known for) as your entree, and a slice of cheesecake or gooey butter cake for dessert.

Another one of my favorite Irish restaurants that I highly recommend is John D. McGurk’s Irish Pub and Garden (or as it's simply known as, McGurk’s). I have only ever sat outside to eat, so I can’t say much about the decor besides the beautiful scenery and location. But what I can rave about is the food, which is all good. To celebrate in Irish culture, I recommend a plethora of menu items. 

For starters, you can’t go wrong with their old-fashioned Irish chips or their Galway Bay crab cakes, which are so fresh and well seasoned that you’ll feel like you were sitting in a sea shack on the oceanfront while wearing a Gaelic sweater. For your main course, they have two traditional but very well done sandwiches, the corned beef and the reuben, neither of which dissapoint. For those who prefer to use a fork over their hands, they have the much raved about corned beef and cabbage and old-fashioned fish and chips. 

But the cream of the crop, the best of the best, and my personal favorite menu items at McGurk’s is a tie between the Irish stew and the Guiness stew: the former is a traditional lamb stew with fresh vegetables and the latter consists of beef tips braised in Guinness stout with potatoes and carrots. Both are served in a hot and fresh sourdough bread bowl and  are incredibly delicious and very soul-warming. If you still have room for dessert, go for either the Bailey’s cheesecake cooked with real Bailey’s irish cream—a dessert that tastes so good and homemade it will remind you of your favorite Irish grandma—or if you’re up for it, try the whiskey bread pudding, a more adventurous but mouth-watering, traditional Irish dessert accompanied by caramel and raspberry sauces and melted whiskey butter.

While it isn’t an Irish restaurant, there is one St. Louis based chain that will not disappoint this St. Patrick’s Day: Sauce on the Side. This March, their monthly special is aptly titled “The Blarney Zone,” and consists of corned beef and pastrami, accompanied by white wine braised onions, glued together with swiss and smoked gouda cheese, and wrapped together in their famously good calzone dough. Whether you’re on-the-go, needing takeout, or simply in the mood for a delicious calzone, Sauce has you covered, as the Blarney Zone that I tried was a perfect mixture of tender, flavorful, smokey meat, which was complimented well with some of the best sauteed onions I have ever had and topped off perfectly with the sauce I dipped on the side: their new horseradish ranch, which was a great mix of unique spice and mellow flavors. If you don’t have the chance to eat out this St. Patrick’s day, I highly recommend getting the monthly special at Sauce on the Side for take out as it may be the very best menu item I will suggest for the annual holiday.

Lastly, I want to leave you with two Irish-themed options for ice cream. While everyone has surely heard of it by now, the Shamrock Shake at McDonalds is worth the hype. Nowhere else will you receive a better minty, sweet drink topped off with traditional whipped cream. It may be powder based and might just be their standard vanilla with green food coloring and mint extract, but McDonald’s has knocked it out of the park every year with their Shamrock Shake (so much so that I keep going back to it every year).

For those who prefer a more local take on dessert, the famous Ted Drewes will be offering a one day sale of green vanilla ice cream. You can never go wrong with Drewes’ standard vanilla, and all they do to switch things up is add green food coloring to it, which definitely gets the job done for being both festive and fun. Don’t let your eyes fool you though, this is not mint-flavored at all. It may look a bit odd to those of you who have it mixed into your concrete, but in a cup, cone, sundae or on top of a fresh hot brownie, the light green color of your sweet treat will hopefully put a smile on your face in the same way it did mine last year.

So there you have it, all of my recommendations and recipes for how to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day the best way possible this year. Stay safe and happy, and always remember: “For each petal on the shamrock which brings a wish your way, good health, good luck, and happiness for today and everyday.”