Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (1868-1927) was a French journalist and author of detective stories.  He is known to English readers as the author of The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) (1911).  Leroux's novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908) is considered the premier "locked room mystery" of all time, in which the criminal disappears from a locked room, and the reader is pressed to solve the mystery by reviewing precise diagrams, floorplans and minute details provided by Leroux.  Agatha Christie admired Leroux's work, particularly his ability to engage readers' intellect and challenge them to solve seemingly unsolvable crimes.  Leroux was born in Paris in 1868, studied law, inherited millions of francs and spent all his money until nearly bankrupt by 1890.  He became a court reporter and theater critic, then an international correspondent who covered the 1905 Russian Revolution.  He investigated the former Paris Opera, which later housed the Paris Ballet, where prisoners of the Paris Commune were held in its basement.  No doubt, inspiration for the setting of his most famous work.  He left journalism and formed his own film company in 1919, where he adapted much of his work into film.  https://americanliterature.com/author/gaston-leroux 

Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom.  The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood.  The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts, each costing one penny.  The fictional Sweeney Todd, the subject of both a successful musical by Stephen Sondheim and a feature film by Tim Burton, also first appeared in an 1846/1847 penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls: A Romance by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest.  The penny dreadfuls inspired the British comics that began to emerge in the 1870s.  Describing penny dreadfuls as "a 19th-century British publishing phenomenon", the BBC adds, their "very disposability (the booklets’ bargain cover price meant they were printed on exceptionally flimsy paper) has made surviving examples a rarity, despite their immense popularity at the time."  Some items that have been named after this topic include a song called "Penny Dreadfuls" by Animal Collective, the Irish literary magazine The Penny Dreadful, and Penny Dreadful, a Showtime horror television series set in Victorian England.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful 

Fava beans are one of the oldest domesticated food legumes.  References to favas occur in both the Talmud and the Mishna, indicating they have been part of the Middle Eastern diet since at least since the 4th century.  Tova Dickstein from Neot Kedumim Biblical Land Preserve in Israel once told me that fava beans were likely a main protein sources for the ancient Israelites.  In fact, the ancient method for cooking fava beans is discussed in the Talmud.  The dried beans were immersed in a pot of water, sealed, then buried beneath hot coals so they could slowly cook.  Dried fava beans, when cooked and peeled, have a texture similar to cooked chickpeas but slightly softer.  Unlike fresh fava beans, dried can be enjoyed year-round.  They are more economical than canned beans, and when you soak and cook them they do not contain unnecessary additives like sodium (plus you don’t have to worry about potentially toxic BPA can linings).  Most forms of fava beans need to be peeled before eating, unless they have already been prepped (which is sometimes the case with canned and cold packed beans).  It’s a time-consuming process, but not difficult at all.  Tori Avey  Read more at https://toriavey.com/how-to/fava-beans-how-to-cook-soak-peel-freeze/ 

Martin "Marty" Cooper (born December 26, 1928) is an American engineer.  He is a pioneer in the wireless communications industry, especially in radio spectrum management, with eleven patents in the field.  While at Motorola in the 1970s, Cooper invented the first handheld cellular mobile phone (distinct from the car phone) in 1973 and led the team that developed it and brought it to market in 1983. He is considered the "father of the (handheld) cell phone"and is also cited as the first person in history to make a handheld cellular phone call in public.  Cooper is co-founder of numerous communications companies with his wife and business partner Arlene Harris.  He is co-founder and current Chairman of Dyna LLC, in Del Mar, California.  Cooper also sits on committees supporting the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the United States Department of Commerce.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cooper_(inventor)  See also https://www.marconisociety.org/fellow-bio/martin-cooper/ 

A boiled dinner takes tougher cuts of meat, or stewing chickens, and simmers them in a pot of water with vegetables.  A boiled dinner differs from a stew in two ways.  In a stew, all the pieces are cut down into bite-sized pieces that will fit on an eating spoon, and the broth is thickened and served with them. In a boiled dinner, the pieces in it all are larger, and the broth is not served.  The meat used can range from corned beef, beef brisket, pork shoulder, a ham bone with some meat on it, or a chicken.  Whatever meat is used, it’s used whole, in one piece, as you would for pot roast.  The low, slow cooking temperature of the simmering water tenderizes the meat.  The vegetables should be added after meat is cooked.  Before adding the vegetables, skim any fat off the top of the water.  The vegetables used might include cabbage, carrots, onions, parsnips, potatoes and turnips, but never any smaller ones such as peas or kernels of corn.  If carrots are used, they are used in large chunks, rather than diced.  The vegetables are simmered until just tender. In the pot, they will absorb the flavour of each other and the meat.  Root vegetables in particular become very mellow and sweet-tasting in a boiled dinner.  When the dinner is ready to serve, the vegetables are left in the pot to stay hot while the meat is removed, placed on a platter, and carved.  You then use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables, leaving the broth behind in the pot, and arrange the vegetables on the platter around the meat.  The dinner is then served from the platter onto plates, and eaten with a knife and fork.  Boiled Dinners were very popular in Ireland, Scotland and on the eastern coast of North America from New England up to Nova Scotia.  In New England, salt cod was sometimes used in place of meat.  In Vermont, it is flavoured with bay leaves and garlic; neither flavouring is used in Maine.  In addition to being a low-cost, wholesome meal, Boiled Dinners were very convenient—they only needed one pot and one burner, not to mention just one plate per person to serve them on.  https://www.cooksinfo.com/boiled-dinners 

The London Beer Flood was an accident at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, London, on 17 October 1814.  It took place when one of the 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vats of fermenting porter burst.  The pressure of the escaping liquid dislodged the valve of another vessel and destroyed several large barrels:  between 128,000 and 323,000 imperial gallons (580,000–1,470,000 l; 154,000–388,000 US gal) of beer were released in total.  The resulting wave of porter destroyed the back wall of the brewery and swept into an area of slum-dwellings known as the St Giles rookery.  The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event; it avoided collapse after a rebate from HM Excise on the lost beer.  The brewing industry gradually stopped using large wooden vats after the accident.  The brewery moved in 1921, and the Dominion Theatre is now where the brewery used to stand.  Meux & Co went into liquidation in 1961.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood 

On February 27, 2021, Saturday Night Live dreams up a Fauci-hosted game show where contestants vie for the vaccine.  Link to video at https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/02/28/snl-dreams-up-fauci-hosted-game-show-where-contestants-vie-vaccine/ 

March 1 is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar.  305 days remain until the end of the year. Events:  1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.  1781 – The Articles of Confederation goes into effect in the United States.  1790 – The first United States census is authorized.  Births:  1810 – Frédéric Chopin, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1849)  1921 – Richard Wilbur, American poet, translator, and essayist (d. 2017)  1927 – Harry Belafonte, American singer-songwriter and actor  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1 

What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you. - Richard Wilbur (1 Mar 1921-2017)

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2332  March 1, 2021