Faith and begorrah, what with St. Paddy's Day coming up faster than the devil on roller skates, what's a strapping lad - or a hungry colleen, for that matter - to do if they develop an appetite for a wee bit o' corned beef?

Well, 'tis always possible they might take themselves down to Jus Cookin's, a leprechaun-size establishment in Lakewood that, for 19 years, has been preparing more corned beef and cabbage than you can shake a shillelagh at. That's 37,000 blessed pounds for those who like round numbers. What's more, this year 'twill be no different, as the staff has been hunkering down for days, preparing 2,100 more pounds for the three-day celebration that begins . . . why, it begins today.

OK, enough of the Celtic schtick. After all, it's not like the dish we know as corned beef even came from Ireland. (Hey, even St. Patrick didn't come from Ireland; at least not originally.) Instead, the dish was most likely conjured up in kitchens of Irish immigrants who settled in New York.

But even if such a sage cyber source as Irish Culture and Customs says that corned beef and cabbage is about as Irish as "spaghetti and meatballs," there's still no blarney in the claims of Jus Cookin's to be arguably the metro Denver king of corned beef at this time of year.

"I see corned beef in my sleep this time of year - it's chasing me, and I can't run fast enough to get away," says Jus Cookin's general manager and corned beef overseer Larry Wheeler, half laughing, half wincing. Then again, wincing makes sense: Wheeler is smack dab in the middle of four consecutive 14-hour shifts that find him looking over the pots and pans in which slabs of beef are being boiled from red to beige to pink to a just-right pinkish-mauve hue.

Then again, Wheeler would rather be weary and bleary than experience a repeat of what happened back in 1991 when the mood in the restaurant turned from green to black when owners Steve and Char Modlich ran out of corned beef.

"When I made the announcement, people booed me. I cried," recalls Char, a full-blooded Italian girl by way of Brooklyn.

"That's never happened since," adds Steve, Char's spouse, who at least has his mother's Irish DNA.

Not that Jus Cookin's bloodlines are bereft of a true spawn of Erin. No sirree, not with the likes of one Mary Walsh, the pride of Galway, oldest of 10 children, who grew up listening to her grandfather talk glowingly of the years he spent in America. Small wonder then, that when Mary was 17, she crossed the Atlantic and never looked back.

Today, she's 61, and if her red hair needs a bit of, well, you might say encouragement these days, her eyes are as blue as the sky and her brogue as lilting as a breeze.

Not that everyone recognizes the origin of her accent. "I had a customer once ask me what part of Texas I was from," she laughs, recounting one of the stories she's accumulated in 13 years of waiting tables for the Modliches. She's also accumulated an appreciation for the excellence of her employers' signature St. Patrick's Day fare.

"I can make cabbage and potatoes myself just fine," she says. "But I don't bother to try an' cook corned beef anymore. I just bring some home from here."

Why not? After all, who's got time to let beef boil for the five or six hours needed to reach optimal tenderness? Who wants to excise all the glistening fat that hasn't boiled away? Who wants to make like a surgeon and carefully carve against the grain so the slices don't turn into shreds?

Given all the necessary TLC, it's no wonder that Jus Cookin's only serves corned beef and cabbage during St. Patrick's Day and the two days preceding it. It's also no wonder that, says Steve, "These three days are our biggest payoff of the year, no questions about it."

Like lemmings to the sea, customers find their way to the restaurant. Even those who didn't make reservations are willing to suffer for supper. Or what would you call a two-hour wait that can become positively Pavlovian as you salivate while sniffing the aroma of corned beef?

Sure, you can order something else from the menu, but then you might be wondering why about 95 percent of your fellow diners were doing otherwise.

Neither of the Modliches really knows how their corned-beef tradition got started. All they know is the first year they opened for business in Aurora, the 100 pounds of corned beef they prepared went quickly. The next year, 200 pounds went just as quickly. The numbers kept rising, even as Jus Cookin's moved to its current Lakewood location in 2004. Except for the Great Corned Beef Famine of 1991, they've never underestimated demand. Nor do they underestimate the effort required.

"This week," says Steve with a sigh, "just kills us."

Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

As he and Char show a visitor around the compact kitchen, past pots of boiling beef and into the cooler where slab-laden trays are being readied for trimming and carving, they don't act like people heading for their own execution. Instead, they are full of enthusiasm and optimism; a man and a woman who have managed to convert the culinary pluck of the Irish into their own little pot.

Here's the beef

The meat got its name because of the corn-size pieces of salt used to cure it. In addition to the salt, flavor is added through brine and pickling spices. Cooking the meat to a tender consistency can take five or six hours.

37,000 pounds of corned beef is what Jus Cookin's has prepared in its 19 years of business.

2,100 pounds likely will be sold in the next three days.

If you go

• Jus Cookin's is located at Simms Street and Eighth Place in Lakewood; 303-205-0123

meadowj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2606

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