Panada/panade/panado  Deriving from the Latin word for bread (panis), this is a paste made from breadcrumbs, plus a liquid - such as water or milk.  It can be used as a thickening, as was traditionally used in the preparation of mousses if eggs weren't available.

http://www.gourmetbritain.com/food-encyclopedia/3635/panadapanadepanado/     NOTE that panada may considered a soup or sauce. 

Interesting Food Facts about Empanadas  The Spanish word for bread is "pan".  "Empanar" is a verb form that means "to bread".   Emapanada is the past-participle, "breaded".  It's basically a single-serving turnover.  It can be filled with sweet foods like fruits, sugars, and syrups, or savory foods like meats, cheeses, and oils.  They originated in northwest Spain, in a region known as Galicia.  Today they are most popular in Spanish-speaking countries across Europe and South America.  Originally they were made with bread dough, but now they are made with pastries as well.  Find more fun facts about empanadas at  http://blog.al.com/southern-foodie/2014/04/april_8_is_national_empanada_d.html

"Today in Food History, Food Holidays & Timeline" http://www.foodreference.com/html/historicevents.html

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is proud to announce that Karen Joy Fowler has won the 34th PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

The four finalists for the award are:  Daniel Alarcón for his novel At Night We Walk in Circles;  
Percival Everett for his novel Percival Everett by Virgil Russell; Joan Silber for her collection of short stories Fools; and Valerie Trueblood for her collection of short stories Search Party:  Stories of Rescue.  Fowler and the four finalists for the award will be honored at the annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony & Dinner to be held at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Saturday, May 10th, 2014 at 7 p.m.  The year’s judges will also be in attendance and will read their citations for each finalist’s work from the stage.  Following the evening’s readings and the Award Ceremony, guests will dine in the Paster Reading Room and the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library.  http://www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/

The invention in the 1880s of the high-speed engine and the automobile enabled Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz – independently of one another – to lay the foundations for the motorization of road transport.  With the help of financial backers and partners, they both invested their private developments in their own enterprises – in Mannheim, Benz founded the firm Benz & Cie. in October 1883, and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) was formed in November 1890.  In order to gain publicity and a certain distinction for their products, both companies sought a suitable trademark.  To begin with, the inventors used their own names – “Benz” and “Daimler” – which vouched for the origin and quality of the engines and vehicles.  The trademark of the Mannheim-based company Benz & Cie. remained unchanged, except that in 1909, the cog wheel symbol which had been used since 1903 was replaced with a laurel wreath surrounding the name Benz.  Mercédès – a Spanish girl’s name meaning ‘grace’ – was the name of the daughter born in 1889 to the Austrian businessman, Emil Jellinek, who had homes in Baden near Vienna and Nice.  A progressive thinker with an interest in sport, Jellinek turned his enthusiasm to the dawning age of the automobile, an invention he knew would be of key importance for the future. As early as 1897, he made the journey to Cannstatt to visit the Daimler factory and ordered his first Daimler car – a belt-driven vehicle with a six-hp two-cylinder engine.  But the car, delivered in October 1897 and with a top speed of 24 km/h, was soon too slow for Jellinek.  He demanded 40 km/h and ordered two more vehicles. Supplied in September 1898, the two Daimler Phoenix cars with their front–mounted eight-hp engines were the world’s first road vehicles with four-cylinder engines.  In 1898, he began to promote and sell Daimler automobiles, in particular, within the higher echelons of society.  In 1899, DMG supplied Jellinek with ten vehicles; in 1900, he received as many as 29.  Jellinek demanded ever faster and more powerful vehicles from DMG.  From 1899, he entered these in race meetings – first and foremost of which was the Nice Week – where he would race under his pseudonym Mercédès - the name of his daughter, ten years old at the time, and a name that was well known in motoring circles.  In the early days, the name referred to the team and driver – not to an automotive brand.  At the beginning of April 1900, Jellinek made an agreement with DMG concerning sales of cars and engines and the decision was taken to use the Jellinek’s pseudonym as a product name.  In addition, it was agreed that a new engine “bearing the name Daimler-Mercedes” was to be developed.  Two weeks later, Jellinek ordered 36 of the vehicles at a total price of 550,000 marks – a sizeable order even by today’s standards.  Just a few weeks later, he placed a new order for another 36 vehicles, all with eight-hp engines.

Find the origin of the star at http://media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-921-614814-1-871937-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-614318-0-1-0-0-0-0-0.html

More on mind maps, one of the more common types of information processing.  It should be used when a writer encounters writers' block or when the writer is having trouble organizing thoughts or ideas.  Problem solvers can use mind maps to address creative challenges without prejudgement and to allocate resources effectively.  Mind mapping visualization spawns ideas that are connected to a central topic, but the technique can also be used to "flesh out" ideas that have already been targeted as potential solutions.  Mind mapping is often used by writers to gather their thoughts and ideas before they lay pen to paper.  A mind map should be a web-like structure of words and ideas that are loosely tied to one another.  Find guidelines for constructing a mind map at http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Mind-Map  

Thank you, muse reader.

If, as Shelley claimed, “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” what does that make poetry editors?  Those literary saints toil away in back rooms, far more unacknowledged than Shelley’s heroes.  And yet editors make poetry possible for the rest of us.  Case in point:  Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal, is celebrating its 125th anniversary.  During that long tenure, its editors have offered early encouragement to Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Carl Phillips, U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey and many other now well-known writers.  Current co-editors Jody Bolz and Ethelbert Miller — both accomplished Washington-area poets — took over the biannual magazine in 2002.  They open each issue with a brief introduction and then arrange the six dozen or so poems that follow in what they call “a conversation with each other.”  Famous names mingle freely with debut authors.  “Ethelbert and I have no ‘first readers,’” Bolz says.  “We read everything that comes in” — about 1,000 poems a month — “and choose maybe 60 poems to discuss at our editorial meetings, reading them aloud to one another, before settling on the 12 to 15 we’ll accept.  Ron Charles  Read more and learn how to subscribe to Poetry Lore ($25 for two years) at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/30/americas-oldest-poetry-journal-celebrates-125-years-of-great-verse/?tid=hpModule_5fb4f58a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e&hpid=z9

Robert Indiana, 85, is a "hard edge" painter and sculptor who is perhaps best known for his iconic "LOVE" paintings and sculptures.  The exhibit "Robert Indiana:  Beyond LOVE," organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, is now at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio through May 25.  See graphics and read an interview with Indiana by Marc Meyers (And if it wasn't for that tilted "O," I wouldn't be here, where I am now.) at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304734304579517820800994460

2014 Kentucky Derby information and Andrew Beyer's analysis

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/sports/2014-kentucky-derby-post-time-draw-odds-and-andrew-beyers-analysis/976/  Post time is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. on Saturday, May 3.  

NOTE that The New York Times has called horse racing America's oldest sport, but many sources list it as lacrosse.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1143  May 2, 2014  On this date in 1952, the world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 made  its maiden flight, from London to Johannesburg.  In 1955, Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.