Here’s some unsolicited advice: Don’t brag to your Irish friends that you’re having corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. And especially not to chef Maeve Rochford, owner of La Jolla’s Sugar and Scribe, whose mother, Mary Margaret, was born in Ireland.

According to Rochford, corned beef and cabbage has nothing to do with either Ireland or St. Patrick’s Day. It’s actually an Irish American dish that originated with the immigrants who arrived in New York at the turn of the last century: the Irish who were poor and couldn’t afford what they considered traditional Irish bacon and the Jews who made more affordable corned beef. Put together corned beef with Irish-style cabbage and potatoes and you have a dish people have been associating with St. Patrick’s Day for more than a century.

What we have instead in my new article for The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Food section is Rochford’s traditional Irish meal for the holiday, straight from her grandmother’s Irish kitchen: Guinness Beef Stew; Soda Bread; a salad featuring fennel, gooseberries and Cashel blue cheese; and Butter Pound Cake With Rhubarb Compote. You’ll have the recipes and techniques to create a gorgeous, authentic meal for friends and family.