Teppanyaki is a style of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook food.  The word teppanyaki is derived from teppan which means iron plate, and yaki, which means grilled, broiled or pan-fried.  In Japan, teppanyaki refers to dishes cooked using an iron plate, including steak, shrimp, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, and monjayaki.  Modern teppanyaki grills are typically propane-heated flat surface grills, and are widely used to cook food in front of guests at restaurants.  Teppanyaki grills are commonly confused with  the hibachi barbecue grill, which has a charcoal or gas flame and is made with an open grate design.  With a solid griddle type cook surface, the teppanyaki is more suitable for smaller ingredients, such as rice, egg, and finely chopped vegetables.  The originator of the teppanyaki-style steakhouse is the Japanese restaurant chain Misono, which introduced the concept of cooking Western-influenced food on a teppan in Japan in 1945.  They soon found the cuisine was less popular with the Japanese than it was with foreigners, who enjoyed both watching the skilled maneuvers of the chefs preparing the food as well as the cuisine itself, which is somewhat more familiar than more traditional Japanese dishes.  As the restaurants became popular at tourist spots with non-Japanese, the chain increased the performance aspect of the chef’s preparation, such as stacking onion slices to produce a flaming onion volcano.  Another piece of equipment in the same family is a flattop grill, consisting of a flat piece of steel over circular burners and typically smaller and round like a Mongolian barbecue.  The form of teppanyaki most familiar to North Americans consists of steak and other meats, along with vegetable accompaniments, and is often known by the name of hibachi, with the establishments often referred to as “Japanese steakhouses.”  In the United States, teppanyaki was made famous by the Benihana restaurant chain, which opened its first restaurant in New York in 1964.  https://endagoxil.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/the-history-of-teppanyaki/

In civil and property law, hotchpot (sometimes referred to as hotchpotch or the hotchpotch rule) refers to the blending, combining or offsetting of property (typically gifts) to ensure equality of a later division of property.  The name hotch-pot is taken from a kind of pudding.  The term is derived from the French word hocher, or "shake."  It was used as early as 1292 as a legal term, and from the 15th century in cooking for a sort of broth with many ingredients (see Hodge-Podge soup) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodge-Podge_(soup) and so it is used figuratively for any heterogeneous mixture.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchpot  Hotch Potch recipe  http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/128-hotch-potch.html

PARAPHRASES from Nickel City Blues, a Gideon Rimes Mystery, Book 1 by Gary Earl Ross:    "teacher's disease"—the need to share everything as if retaining it would lead to a cerebral explosion  *  don't want to play trivia games with somebody whose brain is like a lint trap  *  Gary Earl Ross is Professor Emeritus, University at Buffalo Educational Opportunity Center (UB/EOC).  Playwright, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Poet, Public Radio Essayist, Popular Culture Scholar, Speaker, Writing Workshop Leader, Editor and Manuscript Consultant, Occasional Actor.  http://www.garyearlross.net/

1900-1910:  THE BAUM OZ YEARS  1900:  Jan. 18 – L. Frank Baum and W.W. Denslow apply for joint copyright on a manuscript they tentatively call The Land of Oz.  May 15 – Baum’s renamed fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is scheduled for publication by George M. Hill, Chicago, and printing begins.  1902:   June 16 – The Wizard of Oz opens on stage at the Grand Opera House in Chicago starring Fred Stone as the Scarecrow and Dave Montgomery as the Tin Woodman.   http://ozclub.org/oz-timeline/1900-1910-the-baum-oz-years/  See also William Wallace Denslow and Frank Baum in the Land of Oz at https://manyinterestingfacts.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/william-wallace-denslow-and-frank-baum-in-the-land-of-oz/ and The Great and Powerful Baum and Denslow at http://smallnotes.library.virginia.edu/2013/03/24/baum-denslow/

Wizard of Oz silent film from 1910  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWQ5-UBU22M  13:12 

Wizard of Oz silent film from 1925 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CBmDZjvjGs  1:33:20

The laurels that are being referred to when someone is said to 'rest on his laurels' are the aromatically scented Laurus Nobilis trees or, more specifically, their leaves.  The trees are known colloquially as Sweet Bay and are commonly grown as culinary or ornamental plants.  The origins of the phrase lie in ancient Greece, where laurel wreaths were symbols of victory and status.  Of course, ancient Greece is where history and mythology were frequently mixed, so we need to tread carefully.  The pre-Christian Greeks associated their god Apollo with laurel--that much is historical fact.  The reason for that association takes us into the myth of Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne, who turned into a bay tree just as Apollo approached her.  Undeterred, Apollo embraced the tree, cut off a branch to wear as a wreath and declared the plant sacred.  Their belief in the myth caused the Greeks to present laurel wreaths to winners in the Pythian Games, which were held at Delphi in honour of Apollo every four years from the 6th century BC.  Following the decline of the Greek and Roman empires, the use of wreaths of laurel as emblems of  victory seems to have taken a long holiday and didn't re-emerge until the Middle Ages.  A 'laureate' was originally a person crowned with a laurel wreath.  We continue to call those who are especially honoured laureates although the laurel leaves are usually kept for the kitchen these days.  Nevertheless, laureates benefit in other ways; Nobel Laureates get a nice medal and 10 million Swedish Krona and Poets Laureate (in the UK at least) get a useful salary and a butt of sack (barrel of sherry).  As to the phrase's meaning, to 'rest on one's laurels' isn't considered at all a praiseworthy strategy--it suggests a decline into laziness and lack of application.  That's not the original meaning.  When 'rest on one's laurels' or, as it was initially, 'repose on one's laurels' was coined it was invariably part of a valedictory speech for some old soldier or retiring official.  As soon as we move into the energetic 19th century, the meaning changes and the phrase is used with a distinctly disapproving tone.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rest-on-his-laurels.html

The term jack- o’-lantern was first applied not to pumpkins, but people.  As far back as 1663, the term meant a man with a lantern, or a night watchman. 

The practice of decorating “jack-o’-lanterns”—the name comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack—originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as an early canvas.  Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities.  http://www.history.com/topics/jack-olantern-history  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack-o%27-lantern

"We of the North," Amy Beach wrote to the Boston Herald, "should be more likely to be influenced by old English, Scotch, or Irish songs, inherited with our literature from our ancestors."  And so, on October 30, 1896, Amy Beach put her ideas into practice, when her "Gaelic" Symphony had its first public performance by the Boston Symphony.  As themes for her symphony, Beach used actual folk tunes found in an old collection of Irish melodies.  Composers Datebook

Dave Gallaher (born David Gallagher, 30 October 1873–4 October 1917) was an Irish-born New Zealand rugby union footballer best remembered as the captain of the "Original All Blacks"—the 1905–06 New Zealand national team, the first representative New Zealand side to tour the British Isles.  Under Gallaher's leadership the Originals won 34 out of 35 matches over the course of tour, including legs in France and North America; the New Zealanders scored 976 points and conceded only 59.  Before returning home he co-wrote the classic rugby text The Complete Rugby Footballer with his vice-captain Billy Stead.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gallaher

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1791  October 30, 2017  On this date in 1938, Orson Welles broadcast his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.  On this date in 1945, Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signed a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color line.