It was Friday night and I toyed with the idea of ordering a Black and Tan: a blend of Guinness and Harp that layered perfectly in a pint glass like a two-tiered petit four.
Just the kind of beer to enjoy at an establishment like A Terrible Beauty: a 7,000-square-foot Irish pub operating in downtown Renton since 2010.
However, our family was first-time customers, we made the assumption that it was a 21-and-older kind-of-place. Not so.
The upper-floor seating flanked above the lower floor providing an inviting open space and like a hungry eagle I surveyed the new territory from high above: a poster of JFK, a grand old bar and the pleasant acoustic guitar accompanied an impressive cover of a Cranberries song.
I’m Irish (family lore dates a great-grandfather on my mother’s side who came to the New World from Ireland).
But aside from the freckles and fair complexion, everything I know about what it means to be Irish I learned from Kells and the Anglo Irish literature I studied in college.
A Terrible Beauty reminds me a lot of the first time I went to Kells. I had just turned 21 when I stepped into the famous Seattle pub above Pike Market in Post Alley. I was too chicken to order a Guinness, (black beer?) but had enough good sense not to order a Bud Light.
I stumbled into ordering a pint of Harp. It wasn’t long before the bitter lager taste on my inexperienced palate soon became a fast friend alongside the live Irish folk music and the rowdy merriment and sense of camaraderie made my freckles pulse. Awakening a sense of family that I belonged to. I felt like I had been transported to Ireland.
It was an evening of firsts. The first time I heard of Molly Malone. And my favorite of all was learning The Unicorn Song — something to be sung alongside my friends, our arms flung over each other, our pints raised aloft.
“There were green alligators and long neck geese!” I began to sing, wrapping my arms around Patrick and Ty who were sitting next to me at A Terrible Beauty.
“Mommy!” Patrick cried. “Are you singing about Alligators?” asked pulling my chin in his direction. The kid loves reptiles.
“And the loveliest of all was the unicorn!” I said, hugging my son tight, happy to be with my family in this venue that had evoked so many happy memories.
When done right, Irish pubs just have that special something: Equal parts good comfort food, cozy, dark wood, green, stained glass, and the sense of being surrounded by people enjoying themselves — especially on a cold winter night.
“Let’s let Mommy enjoy the moment,” Paul, my husband, said flashing me a smile. I watched him scuttle Patrick and Ty over to a nearby foosball table.
Sophie and Amelia hung back with me enjoying a cover of a Beth Orton song.
“This Irish Stew is sooooooo good,” Sophie exclaimed. I make vegetable beef soup all the time—but this was Sophie’s first Irish Stew.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t talked to my kids much about my Irish heritage as I glanced down at a quote on A Terrible Beauty’s menu cover.
“Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.”
The quote was from Yeats. The poem had inspired the name, A Terrible Beauty. A memory flashed of my UW professor half sitting on the top of an empty desk. It was a small class. He wore thick cords, a Celtic wedding band and tweed jacket with leather elbow patches reading aloud in a thick Irish brogue this famous Yates poem Easter, 1916, about the Irish insurrection against the English.
I couldn’t think of a better place (barring a family trip to Ireland) for my kids to get a taste of their heritage than here at A Terrible Beauty.
After all, food and literature are vehicles to learn more about the historical roots of a people and place — why they ate the food they ate and why they wrote what they wrote.
The hearty Irish stew Sophie was enjoying was the product of a culinary tradition where Mutton was the dominant ingredient in Irish dishes because the economic importance of sheep lay in their wool and milk produce so only old or economically non-viable animals ended up in the cooking pot, where they needed hours of slow boiling.
I never thought I would enjoy these memories with my kids. And yet here we were together at an Irish pub and restaurant in Renton! You don’t have to be Irish to feel a part of the community at A Terrible Beauty and thanks to its owners they assured it’s a family affair.
I love suggestions! If you know of people or places in Renton that surprise, delight and inspire the community, drop me a line at carolyn@pippimamma.com. Also follow Carolyn on her blog, www.pippimamma.com.
