You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

My grandmother was quite the cook. We used to tell her that she should open up a restaurant, and then my Dad and I would sing the chorus of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" to my Grandma while she was cooking the Sunday night dinner. (Grandma's "American" name was Alice.) (In fact, my Dad and I used to listen to "Alice's Restaurant" quite frequently on cassette single. The real meaning was lost on ten-year-old me, but as I got older, and we continued listening to the song, I gradually realized that my Dad was ...very much like Steven and Elise Keaton from Family Ties.)

Anyway, one of our favorite meals that Grandma used to make for our Sunday night dinners was corned beef hash patties. Her recipe called for tons of potato, grated onion (because our family liked the flavor of onion, but not the texture), corned beef from a can, and an egg (for binding). I was her kitchen helper and got to grate the onion, mash the potatoes, and make the small patties. She would then pan fry them in her cast iron skillet, and we would eat it with rice (of course), and some vegetable/salad.

When my Grandma got sick and too old to cook Sunday night dinners for us anymore, the torch was passed on to my Mom. In fact, my Mom inherited the old school wooden bat-like instrument that we used to mash the potatoes. She updated the recipe by substituting onion powder for the actual grated onion (do you know how hard it is to get the smell of grated onion juice off your hands?), and recently, has taken to baking the hash in a non-stick pan instead of pan frying the patties. This, she discovered, cut down on the need to use as much oil, as well as a lot of cleanup.

Tonight, I tried my hand at making corned beef hash for our own little Sunday night dinner ritual. I baked it and used onion powder, like my Mom's updated version, but hummed "Alice's Restaurant" as I was mashing the potatoes and mixing the ingredients together with the egg, which brought me back to my Grandma's sunny avocado colored kitchen, and my childhood Sunday night dinners.

(The secret to get the hash crispy while baking is to spread a little olive oil on the bottom of the pan and then brush a little more olive oil on the top of the hash before putting it in the oven.)

I served it with braised cabbage (a nod to Hon's Irish heritage), rice, and topped it with French's fried onion strings....because French's fried onion strings makes everything taste better. (What can I say, I like trashy food.)

And that is my updated, third generation take on Grandma's Corned Beef Hash and Sunday night dinner.

...Walk right in, it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant.