Yesterday, we noticed that online hits on last year’s corned beef story were going strong this week, so I thought I’d resurrect the old Q & A for those of you who are starting to crave corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day and were wondering about its origins. I’ll attach the Q & A after the jump.

Every year about this time, I start thinking about my dear Grandma Nair stabbing holes in the corned beef roast and stuffing them with whole garlic cloves. Mmmm, I can just picture the steaming slices of corned beef beside a pile of cabbage and potatoes.

For a good-looking corned beef recipe, check out the Meal Planner in this coming Sunday’s Extra section. Meal Planner guru Susan Nicholson has a tasty honey-mustard glazed corned beef recipe that looks like a winner.

Also, in case you missed it, we published a few more Irish recipes in the Extra section today. They are for Irish Beef Stew, Dublin Coddle (a layered dish of sausage, cabbage and onions with bacon) and Irish Pound Cake. That pound cake recipe looks like it’ll actually turn out a 3-pound cake. It calls for golden raisins, dried currants, dried cherries, chopped almonds and a brushing with Irish whiskey when it comes out of the oven.

If you missed those, you can still check them out here. Just look to the left of the page under my picture.

Does your family eat anything special for St. Patrick’s Day?

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