The name Renée is French for "reborn."  The name Guy is of Old German origin, and the meaning is "wood".  Diana is of Latin origin and means divine.  Katherine is of Greek origin and means pure.  Lucille comes from Lucia, whose famous namesake was a fourth-century patron saint of the blind (like Lucia, Lucille means “light”).  

The pistachio nut is a member of the Cashew family, which also includes sumac, mango and poison ivy.  Pistachios have been cultivated for over 7,000 years and are mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible.  They are popular in Greece, and are used there in many pastries.  Legend has it that the Queen of Sheba decreed pistachios an exclusively royal food, going so far as to forbid commoners from growing the nut for personal use.  Nebuchadnezzar, the ancient king of Babylon, had pistachio trees planted in his fabled hanging gardens.  In the first century A.D., the Emperor Vitellius debuted this prized nut in his capital city of Rome.  According to Moslem legend, the pistachio nut was one of the foods brought to Earth by Adam.  Pistachio production in the U.S. was 346 million pounds in 2004.  The U.S. is the world's 2nd largest producer of pistachios, Iran is the largest.  Pistachios are one of only two nuts mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 43:11) the other being almonds.  Pistachios are also called the 'green almond' and are known as the 'smiling nut' in Iran and the 'happy nut' in China.  http://www.foodreference.com/html/f-pistachios.html 

A chemically pure and structurally perfect diamond is perfectly transparent with no hue, or color.  However, in reality almost no gem-sized natural diamonds are absolutely perfect.  The color of a diamond may be affected by chemical impurities and/or structural defects in the crystal lattice.  Depending on the hue and intensity of a diamond's coloration, a diamond's color can either detract from or enhance its value.  For example, most white diamonds are discounted in price when more yellow hue is detectable, while intense pink diamonds or blue diamonds (such as the Hope Diamond) can be dramatically more valuable.  Of all colored diamonds, red diamonds are the rarest.  The Aurora Pyramid of Hope displays a spectacular array of naturally colored diamonds, including red diamonds.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_color 

Alternating layers of Yukon Gold and sweet potatoes make this cheesy gratin a perfect Thanksgiving side dish.  It’s adapted from Recipes From the President’s Ranch (The White House Historical Association) by Matthew Wendel, former personal chef to President George W. and Laura Bush.  He began cooking for the Bushes at the Texas Governor’s Mansion and followed them to the White House and to their Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.  He prepared his homey West Texas fare for heads of state, from Angela Merkel to Tony Blair.  “I made this gratin mostly at Camp David in the fall.  It’s great for a crowd.”  https://parade.com/1118194/alison-ashton/potato-gratin-with-gruyere-and-fresh-rosemary-recipe/

Franklin Pierce Adams, (1881-1960) or F.P.A. as he was known to readers in his lifetime, was best known for his witty and satirical column “The Conning Tower,” which was syndicated in the New York Tribune, the New York World, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Post.  In his column, to which he had a cult-like following, Adams wrote limericks, puns, and satirical prose to dissect political events, review books and plays, and parody the age.  A forthright writer who had the freedom to comment on whatever he chose, F.P.A. peppered his column with light verse.  He scorned unrhymed free verse, and his poetry was clever and catchy, utilizing the kind of quipping that was the very spirit of his column.  His audience was known to repeat these “F.P.A.isms” everywhere.   https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/franklin-pierce-adams 

World-famous painter Edvard Munch willed all of his works still in his possession to the municipality of Oslo.  The donation amounted to about 28 000 paintings, sketches, photographs and sculptures.  It has long been clear that their current home, Oslo's Munch Museum, is insufficient both with respect to displaying and maintaining this collection.  In 2008, Oslo's city council decided to build a new museum for Munch's art.  An architectural competition for the new museum was announced, and in 2009 an international jury named as the winner Spanish architect Juan Herreros' proposal Lambda.  The tower, which sits on a three-story podium, has two zones:  one static and one dynamic.  The static zone is an enclosed concrete structure, which complies with stringent requirements in order to protect the art.  The dynamic zone has an open, transparent façade with beautiful views over the city and the Oslo fjord.  With a total of 13 floors and 11 gallery spaces, MUNCH will be able to offer a wide range of approaches to Edvard Munch and his art, and to juxtapose his oeuvre with those of other modernists and contemporary artists.  Take a sneak peek at the new MUNCH museum, Deichman main library, and National Museum at https://www.visitoslo.com/en/your-oslo/new-architecture/on-the-horizon/lambda/  MUNCH in Bjørvika is currently scheduled to open in the autumn of 2021. 

The phrase to warm the cockles of one’s heart means to give one a comforting feeling of contentment.  The noun cockle now denotes specifically an edible burrowing bivalve mollusc with a strong ribbed shell common on sandy coasts (Genus Cardium, family Cardiidae).  But it was formerly applied more vaguely to other bivalves and their shells.  This is because this word is from Old French coquille, meaning shell (with the English shifting of the stress, the original Middle-English forms such as cokille have become cockle, in the same way that gentle is from Middle-English forms such as gentile).  In his textbook Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530), the teacher and scholar of languages John Palsgrave translated both the English terms coccle fysshe and cokell shell as French coquille.  The expression the cockles of one’s heart is first recorded in Some Observations upon the Answer to an Enquiry into the Grounds.  Find other origin stories at https://wordhistories.net/2017/09/27/cockles-of-heart-origin/

‘Big Shot’: Vaccine Theme Songs Have Their Moment The Wall Street Journal  April 13, 2021  p. A1

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play. - Arnold J. Toynbee, historian (14 Apr 1889-1975) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2351  April 14, 2021