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Given my Irish heritage, it's no wonder that St. Patrick's Day looms large on my calendar. And when people ask me about St. Pat's Day plans, I can only say that the day isn't complete without a piece of fresh, warm Irish soda bread!

I’m not much of a baker, but my wonderful neighbor, Marie, gifts my family every year with a freshly baked loaf of homemade Irish soda bread. Marie was kind enough to share her soda bread recipe, which has been passed down through the generations in her family. 

Mrs. Graham's Irish Soda Bread

In a bowl, mix:

4 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 scant teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons caraway seeds

1 1/2 cups of raisins (about ½ a box)

Next, add:

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and pour dough into a cast-iron frying pan. Flour the top of the dough lightly and cut a cross into the top of the loaf. Bake for 1 hour in a 325-degree oven or until knife comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Like shopping for sheets and other bedding products , buying pillows isn't a walk in the park. Besides how soft or firm you want the pillow to be, you'll have to choose from an array of pillow types: buckwheat or latex, down or feather. Sleep Like the Dead's comparisons could help you find the perfect pillow for you.

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Dear Lifehacker,
I want to build an emulation station for retro gaming, but there are so many options! Custom PC, Raspberry Pi, Android tablet...Which is the best? What are the pros and cons of each?

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Today is World Sleep Day, designed to make us all celebrate sleep and, presumably, try to get a little bit more of it. But even if you can't catch more shuteye than usual, here are the five most important things you need to know in order to make the resting hours you do get count.

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Electrical projects around the home can seem scary if you've never done them before. But they don't have to be. Here are eight common electrical repairs and replacements that you can do yourself. No experience necessary.

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When it comes to setting goals—whether they're personal, professional, financial, or anything in between—it's easy to forget that anyone who's gotten where you want to be went through a long process to get there. Finance blog Mom and Dad Money explains why this is the most important, yet overlooked aspect of changing your habits.

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We're huge fans of crock pot cooking , but using it isn't always easy. One tip to remember: Keep added liquids to a minimum—there's little to no evaporation, so too much can backfire, drying out roasts and making stews soupy.

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Stress is one of the biggest causes of health problems in many peoples' lives: it can cause heart disease, depression, anxiety attacks, sleep problems, auto-immune diseases, weight problems, and more. But we're busy—how do we drop the stress levels down while still getting our jobs done, and taking care of ourselves and our families?

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If you were to think of the dirtiest place in your house, you probably wouldn't think of the kitchen sink. According to WebMD, you should because it's actually worse than your toilet.

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While following in the footsteps of the successful doesn't guarantee success, it provides a pretty good outline when forming your own strategies. The biography of the late Jerry Garcia points to such an outline of how the Grateful Dead approached their work that might serve useful in yours.

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What a wacky thing Pi Day is — celebrating today’s date, 3/14, which is like the first three digits of Pi, 3.14, with dessert? Whatever! Pie is yummy, say the masses. You can ramp up that devotion to Pi/pie day with the cherpumple- – a cherry pie, apple pie and pumpkin pie, all baked into a cake.

It’s within your reach, ye of faint baking heart. Lest you think you could never concoct such a monument to dessert inception (a dessert within a dessert, see?), People.com has an easy how to, including evidence of successful cherpumples past.

Here’s how you make your own 15-pound monument to excess:

1. Make each layer separately as well as the cake to encase them all. Grab your favorite recipes, bake up each pie, and then grab your cake mix.

2. Pour about 1⅓ cups of the cake batter into either a square or round pan — whatever will fit a pie as well.

3. Remove the first pie from its tin and push it into the batter, making sure it’s in there but don’t shove hard enough to destroy it.

4. Cover it with batter and bake as the directions instruct.

5. Repeat the process with each pie, cooling all three cakepies before the final step.

6. Layer the cakepies like a layer cake, using the frosting of your choice in between and all around.

It might sag under the weight of deliciousness, but appearances aren’t everything. The taste of three pies within a cake, that’s everything.

You can follow MBQ on Twitter if you want to talk about cherpumples today, or any day: @marybethquirk

The Ultimate Pi Day Recipe: A 3-Layer Cherry, Pumpkin and Apple Pie [People.com]

You’re standing in front of a rack of clothing and there’s something you really want — whether it’s a shirt or a pair of pants or whatever — and you feel like wailing, “They’re out of my siiiiiiize!” For many, there is a way out of such a disappointing situation: Just buy kids’ sizes, one admitted children’s department shopper explains in a new confession.

Sure, kids’ clothes can be cheaper, but many of you are probably thinking there’s absolutely no way you could fit into a shirt made for an 11-year-old boy, much less jeans designed for a tween girl.

But over at Esquire.com, where Chris Faraone is coming clean about his tendency to shop for mainly Ralph Lauren clothing in the children’s section of department stores, he points out right away that he’s no string bean. And yet, he makes it work so he can save money.

“The first thing you should know is that I’m not petite. At 5’10”, and with a face full of scruff, I haven’t been mistaken for a teenager since I stopped being one 15 years ago,” he writes. “Furthermore, my weight hovers around the 200-pound mark, yet I manage to fit comfortably in Ralph Lauren youth tops, from simple polos to bright rugby shirts.”

Unconvinced this is an okay idea? Straight up laughing? Either way — those items usually cost about half the price of adult sizes and it’s not like anyone will even notice… until they do. At which moment, prepare yourself.

Faraone writes of a media mixer he attended in Boston once, when someone who knows his Ralph Lauren needed more info on his outfit, asking how he found a Polo dress shirt with a pocket on the breast.

“In the silliest way possible, I’d feared this very moment,” he writes. “As the preppy reporter further observed, Ralph Lauren shirts traditionally lack a breast pocket, let alone one embroidered with a trademark Polo man. Somewhat stunned, I claimed it turned up at an outlet store a year or so earlier, which was technically true, but I still regret not being more honest. I would consider this confession a penance, but, in retrospect, I’m more proud of my thrift than otherwise embarrassed.”

His tips for gaming the department store? Just act like you’re shopping for your giant niece or nephew, and bring your items to the adult fitting rooms. Otherwise you could get some questions.

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WHY I BUY RALPH LAUREN BOYS’ SIZES [Esquire.com]

Bagged salads are a super convenient way to get more vegetables into your mouth, but if you buy them, it’s time to check your fridge. Listeria monocytogenes is a nasty pathogen that can have serious consequences for vulnerable humans, and was found in salads marketed under the names Dole Italian Blend, Fresh Selections Italian Style Blend, Little Salad Bar Italian Salad, and Marketside Italian Style Salad.

This recall is due to the pathogen showing up in a sample that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency tested. Since the contaminated sample was part of a lot with a “sell by” date of March 12, Dole notes that it’s “highly unlikely” that any bags are left in stores, and they’ve probably already been eaten or are still sitting in customers’ crispers.

If you have affected salad in your home, contact Dole at (800) 356-3111 or bring it back to the retailer where you purchased it.

Here’s where affected bags were distributed:

Connecticut
Florida
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Virginia

New Brunswick
Ontario
Quebec

If you’re wondering what, exactly, makes a salad “Italian,” this blend consists of Romaine lettuce and radicchio (Italian chicory), a leafy red vegetable that looks like red cabbage but is way tastier.

Listeria is one of the scariest foodborne illnesses, which hits the very old, the very young, the immunocompromised, and pregnant women the hardest. It has an incubation period of up to 70 days, and even in healthy people causes unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms, fever, and muscle stiffness.

Dole Fresh Vegetables Announces Precautionary Recall of Limited Number of Salads [Dole]

What happens when there’s a brand new industry opening up? That industry needs hard workers, and it’s no different when the new business in the state happens to be marijuana. Now that it’s legal in Colorado for recreational use, Denver held what appears to be the nation’s first-ever job fair to attract workers.

So what kinds of jobs are there, exactly? From the sounds of CBS News’ report on the CannaSearch event, it sounds like just about anything you could think of — from the guy serving up a slice of pot brownie at the local marijuana shop, to positions in cannabis healthcare and CPA and bookkeeping positions. All things any normal businesses need.

And it sounds like Thursday’s job fair was a success, if not an overwhelming one, for the organizers, with one marijuana entrepreneur and even organizer saying there were about 1,200 in a line outside.

“People started showing up about 6 a.m. this morning, for the doors opening at 11 a.m.,” he said yesterday. “The line is longer than a block now.”

The fair hosted 15 marijuana-related companies seeking to meet with potential job candidates. And despite jokes about your resume being perhaps a list of your favorite, kindest buds, it was quite the official to-do, much like any other job event.

“It’s been great,” said the general manager of a medicinal and recreational marijuana dispensary in Denver. “We’ve had hundreds of people stop by the booth. I have stacks of resumes right here in front of me, lots of cards given out. I’m sure we’re going to find a great bunch of people to add to our company.”

Cue your stoner cousin Ronnie scrambling off the couch to research “How to write a pot resume” and “flights to Colorado.”

Marijuana job fair attracts hundreds of job-seekers [CBS News]

The FDA and the Oregon-based company that produces Kirkland Signature Real Sliced Fruit packages for Costco have issued a recall of nearly 60,000 cases of the product because the last thing you want with your freeze-dried fruit is Salmonella poisoning.

According to the recall notice, the company began recalling the product from stores last week and attempts are being made to notify, by phone and mail, Costco members who purchased the product.

Cases of the potentially contaminated fruit slices were distributed to Costco stores in: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Puerto Rico.

The FDA says it knows of no illnesses resulting from the possible Salmonella contamination and that

Any of the fruit slices currently on store shelves should be from unaffected batches and safe for consumption. However, out of caution, we recommend that you check the “Best Before” date on the upper left corner of the front panel of the case. Recalled cases have the Best Before Date that reads FEB142015 – MAR112015.

Consumers who have purchased Kirkland Signature Real Sliced Fruit with that Best Before Date on the case should return the product to Costco for a full refund.

Customers with questions may contact Oregon Freeze Dry at recall@ofd.com. or 1-888-641-2933 (Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time).

This is the latest in not-good food news for Costco. Last summer, an outbreak of hepatitis was linked to a frozen berry mix sold at the wholesale club. Then in October, cooked rotisserie chickens sold at Costco were recalled for possible Salmonella contamination.

We’ve heard about white hot real estate, but who knew that could apply to an entire village? Spain has an estimate 2,900 empty villages, hamlets and tiny towns tucked all over the country, including one dating back to the 15th century that’s currently going for the bargain basement price of absolutely no money whatsoever.

Yes, an entire village for zero Euros, no dollars and absolutely no cash. However, whoever buys the town of A Barca must first present a development project for the village, reports the AFP, one that will preserve all its crumbling, moss-covered stone buildings.

It sounds very quaint, if you’ve got the right stuff to take care of it — nestled on a hillside overlooking a river, right near the Portuguese border. Perfect for all those book clubbers looking for their own Eat, Pray, Love experience, right?

The officials overseeing the project say they’re looking for an owner who will focus on tourism.

“Something that would provide work to villagers and local businesses,” said the mayor of a municipality that oversees A Barca.

This particular village, one of thousands scattered across the country, was left empty in the 1960s when a new dam was built. It flooded villagers’ farmland, causing them to either move to larger cities or find better land for farming.

Anyone want to go splitsies? I’ll pay the $0 for the village and my partner can restore all the buildings and pay for maintenance.

You can follow MBQ on Twitter if you’re serious about splitting free real estate: @marybethquirk

Abandoned Spanish villages, given away for free [AFP]

When you’re shopping online, you probably perform a cursory search online to find out whether the e-retailer you’re about to buy from has any coupons available online. Sites for sharing coupon codes like RetailMeNot are great to check quickly. What should you do if your search comes up empty? Don’t despair. Like brick-and-mortar retailers, online stores might have your back when you don’t bring your own coupons. 

Who can you ask before you hit “Check out” on your order? The store’s customer service chat representative, if there is one. Over at Rather-Be-Shopping.com, they tested this theory and found a lucky thirteen stores that were happy to provide coupons when a prospective customer just asked nicely.

Their list, with some notes:

• Bass Pro Shops: They provided a free shipping coupon.
• Birthday Express and Celebrate Express:: They gave out a 15% off coupon for a purchase of $75 and up. The same codes work for both sites.
• Dress Barn: 20% off one item, not bad.
• East Bay: A 20% off coupon was available to everyone on the checkout page, in theory.
• Foot Locker: Another free shipping coupon.
• Home Depot: No coupon code, but very helpful chat reps.
• J. Jill: Coupons for free shipping for orders $100 and above, and 30% off all items already on sale or clearance.
• L.L. Bean: 10% off all purchases coupon.
• Lands’ End: Free shipping and 30% off all merchandise.
• Office Depot: $10 off a $50 purchase.
• Shutterfly: $10 off (may depend on size of purchase – only open up chat once everything you plan to buy is in your cart)
• Sierra Trading Post: 30% off a $75 purchase
• Snapfish: 30% off entire purchase.

Ask For a Coupon – Which Popular Online Retailers Have Live Chat Operators Who Hand Out Coupons [Rather Be Shopping]

“Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea” sounds incredibly unpleasant. The disease first showed up in the United States last year, and thanks to the cold weather nationwide has showed up in 27 states. What is it, and should humans be worried? Not unless you own any hogs or you have a tight budget for meat for the next year or two.

The disease, PEDv for short, is a virus that sounds a lot like the “stomach bugs” that we humans get. The trouble is that it’s incredibly dangerous for piglets, killing up to 80-100% of babies that are infected. It’s less deadly for adult pigs, but still pretty deadly.

In the last year, PEDv has killed four to five million pigs in less than a year. “While it has absolutely no impact on food safety, it has clear implications for the pork industry in terms of supplying pork to consumers,” the president of the National Pork Board said in a statement.

Experts say that there’s no food safety danger–PEDv can’t infect humans, It’s not at all related to “swine flu,” which did infect humans back in 2009.

Deadly pig virus spreads to Arizona; 27 U.S. states now affected [Reuters]
PEDv dangers cause swine certification during importation [Farm and Ranch Guide]

- A man convicted of killing nine people, including six monks, during a robbery at a Buddhist temple in metro Phoenix was sentenced Friday to 249 years in prison, marking the end of one of the most notorious criminal cases in Arizona over the past 25 years.

- A popular fifth-grade teacher will not face prosecution for fatally shooting a knife-wielding prowler in a ski mask who turned out to be his 15-year-old son, a prosecutor announced Friday.

- A new program at Tufts University hopes to remove the financial barriers keeping cash-strapped students from taking a year off after high school to travel or volunteer, offering an opportunity now typically only available to more affluent students to explore different communities and challenge their comfort zones before starting college.

- The FBI is refusing to run nationwide background checks on people applying to run legal marijuana businesses in Washington state, even though it has conducted similar checks in Colorado -- a discrepancy that illustrates the quandary the Justice Department faces as it allows the states to experiment with regulating a drug that's long been illegal under federal law.

For the third time in recent days, a D.C. firefighter has been arrested. In the latest arrest, a firefighter has been charged for allegedly setting fire to his own car in an attempt to defraud his insurance company.

After months of slowed-down data speeds for Netflix users on Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s network, speeds rebounded the very same month that Netflix agreed to pay Comcast money for more direct access to its network.

As you can see from the graph above, generated from Netflix’s monthly report, Comcast customers saw a dramatic turnaround in streaming speeds, going from about 1.5 Mbps to 1.7 Mbps.

Though that is still far off from the 2.1 Mbps speeds Comcast users were seeing before their ISP’s numbers started to tank, it is hopefully the beginning of an upward trend. Of course, there wasn’t really much worse Comcast speeds could get.

What’s interesting is that the Netflix deal wasn’t announced until late February, with only a few days left in the month. Had Comcast eased up on congested peering points in expectation of the agreement being finalized?

Likewise, since no paid peering deal with Time Warner Cable has been announced, we have to wonder if the sudden improvement in TWC’s speeds are tied to its proposed merger with Comcast. Granted, TWC’s speed results have been so erratic that it’s possible this uptick is just a matter of someone using the good duct tape to fix a loose connection somewhere.

Meanwhile, Verizon FiOS speeds have sunk from being the best and steadiest of the three providers to substandard levels. Netflix is reportedly in talks with Verizon for a paid-peering deal of some sort, so those numbers will likely improve; it’s just a question of when — and how bad Verizon will allow the connection to get before customers revolt.

For comparison’s sake, here is how these three providers look compared to Google Fiber, the fastest ISP on Netflix’s charts:

And here are the three providers compared to Google and a few other major ISPs:

- A U.S. official says a Malaysia Airlines plane was sending signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication that it was still flying.

- Two 16-year-olds are accused of targeting and killing a classmate in what may have been a dispute over a girl, after police in Texas say they were caught trying to dump the other boy's body.

- Legendary voice-over artist Hal Douglas, whose sonorous delivery starred in trailers for thousands of movies and documentaries, has died, his family said Thursday.

About 230 students and faculty at an Alexandria elementary school are sick with a stomach illness, forcing the school to close.

Prosecutors have charged a Maryland woman with misdemeanor assault on a child for allegedly hitting toddlers under her care at a military daycare center.

Virginia State Police say charges are pending in connection with a crash that sent seven people to the hospital in Prince William County.