Lucky Me

You've heard, no doubt, of the Luck of the Irish. I'm only half Irish but I got more than my share. I've always been the luckiest person I know, knock wood. I'm also a little superstitious so I don't toast people with water and when I learn that something promotes good luck, I try to partake. I wasn't raised in the South or by a Southerner - my mother was about as Yankee as it's possible to be - but I learned from my friends with Southern roots that blackeyed peas at New Year brings good luck.

So, at the New Year, when My Beloved took me to the city for a viewing of the hilarious and inventive stage adaptation of Hitchcock's "39 Steps," and to the Urban Tavern afterward, I ordered steelhead trout with blackeyed pea cassoulet to bolster my good luck for 2010.

It was a better combination than it sounds.

The fish had a highly salted, crisped skin that peeled back to reveal perfectly cooked, light pink flesh laid over a bed of braised Belgian endive. The cassoulet was made and served in one of the so-adorable, single serving Staub pots that are all the fashion right now. The blackeyed peas were beautifully tender and presented with bits of duck confit and a half rasher of very lean bacon as well as some meltingly soft carrots, onions and garlic. The trout was excellent but the cassoulet was a wonderfully fresh take on an old classic and was the highlight of the meal.

The play and the evening, shared with daughter Katie and her squeeze André, was delightful, the food was delicious and I was left to marvel once again at my good fortune, knock wood. Lucky me!