Pizza Night, Irish Fight

Pizza night is sacred. Then St. Patrick’s butted in.

By Willow Pennell

Pizza night is Friday night and pizza night is sacred.

Like many family rituals that started as a lark, it became the thing that makes us “Us,” especially as our kids have grown older and closer to their independent lives.

© Willow Pennell 2023

Another nonnegotiable: St. Patrick’s day dinner. Irish Soda bread and colcannon, usually. For music, a complete listening to The Pogues’ “Red Roses for Me,” and a smattering of The Dubliners too. The more booze and gambling in the lyric, the louder the singalong.

This year pizza night and St. Pat’s converged.

I’d considered making corned beef and cabbage alongside a simple pizza, but where’s the fun in that? Friday night pizza night had to “go to Ireland.” I decided to make corned beef and cabbage for one pizza, potato-cheddar-onion for the other.

In the morning, I threw a hunk of corned beef in the Instant Pot with a cup of white wine and let the pressure cook for an hour, then added some veg for flavor and put it back on for 15 mi…