Bloomsday

Today, for those who don't know it, is yet another of the odd and sundry holidays that I celebrate at my house.

Among others, there are the standard ones (Christmas -- cookies and more cookies!), the Jewish ones (Rosh Hashanah -- the new year, Chanukkah -- the festival of lights), the secular ones (New Year's Eve, Hallowe'en), the ethnic ones (St. Paddy's Day), and the literary ones (Robby Burns Day -- January 25 -- in honor of Scotland's favorite poet). I'll celebrate virtually anything -- as we already know, it's all about the food!!!

But today, June 16, has a special place in my heart: today is Bloomsday. It is the day featured in the great novel Ulysses, by my beloved James Joyce.

I first read Joyce as a college freshman, like so very many both before and after me. My Freshman Comp teacher encouraged my writing, and as he got to know me realized that I would undoubtedly find a kindred spirit in an author from Ireland (I'm 1/4 Irish -- my paternal grandmother was born and raised in Cork), who had been raised Catholic (13 years in Catholic schools, God help me!), and who had become disillusioned with the Church (I now consider myself a secular Jew). I found a copy of Dubliners, a collection of stories ending with the extraordinarily beautiful and poignant "The Dead," and immersed myself for the entire next night in reading the book. I have been a Joycean ever since.

Ulysses follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom as he meanders in an Oydssean fashion through Dublin on June 16, 1904. In real life, it was on this day that Joyce went on his first date with the woman whom he would eventually marry, Nora Barnacle (originally Norah). She was instrumental in his life in so many, many ways; and God knows she put up with a lot living with a genius! What a singularly unique and romantic way of commemorating such a critical date (and person) in one's life -- using it in one of the greatest works of English literature!

The book was considered obscene, so many publishers refused it. Yeah, there's language issues, bathroom talk, infidelity, some activities that are rumored to make a person go blind ... and its stream of consciousness was radical at the time, so many people didn't understand the book or what purpose it might serve.

So an expatriate American living in Paris, Sylvia Beach, originally published it in 1922 through her bookstore Shakespeare and Company. (And I cannot tell you how thrilled -- thrilled! -- I was to find a framed photo of the place years ago at a street art show! It now has a proud place in my library-themed half-bathroom, so that all can see it and worship.) The book wasn't published in the United States until 1933, after a trial(!) and a judgment by U.S. District Judge John M. Woolsey that it wasn't pornographic.

But anyway ... I am not the most devoted and erudite of Joyceans; I'm simply a sincere fan. And since virtually everything in my life revolves around food, I don't celebrate Bloomsday by taking a tour through Dublin that follows the book's storyline or by reading Ulysses again each year. I make traditional Irish food, though I'm not sure yet whether we're eating salmon or lamb, or whether I'll make rhubarb crisp.

I could, I suppose, make a meal in honor of Leopold Bloom's favorites:

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

But I'm none too keen on any of these particular items myself ... not that I've actually tried them, but I kinda have a feeling! So I'll spare you a recipe for any of them, and devote my fingertips to a more suitable purpose: typing out my recipe for Brown Soda Bread.

I make this every St. Paddy's Day, and always say that it's so easy it should be served more often throughout the year. Well, here's the proper occasion! Honor Bloomsday -- a celebration of literature and of love -- by making this hearty bread which is fabulous just plain with butter, or served with jam or with cheese. "... yes I said yes I will yes."

Brown Soda Bread

1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup quick oats
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cold, cut into bits
1 cup raisins, softened (I prefer dried cranberries, but Jeremy likes raisins)
2-2/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 F. Sprinkle a bit of flour onto 2 baking sheets, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/2 cup white flour, whole wheat flour, white whole wheat flour, salt, oats and baking soda. Add the butter and mix it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles meal. Stir in the raisins and the buttermilk to form a wet dough.

Sprinkle half of the remaining flour onto the countertop, and knead it into the dough; repeat with the rest of the flour until the dough is no longer sticky.

Divide dough in half and shape each half into an 8-inch round; place one dough round onto each of the prepared baking sheets. Slice an “X” into the top of the dough, and bake the breads for 30-35 minutes until they are golden brown. Let cool completely before serving.

Makes 2 loaves.

And check out this article in today's New York Times encouraging the humanities and, especially, the reading of Ulysses ... :)