Vigna angularis, also known as the adzuki (Japanese:  azuki bean, aduki bean, red bean, or red mung bean, is an annual vine widely cultivated throughout East Asia for its small (approximately 5 mm or ¹⁄₄ in long) bean.  The cultivars most familiar in East Asia have a uniform red color, but there are also white, black, gray, and variously mottled varieties.  In East Asian cuisine, the adzuki bean is commonly sweetened before eating.  In particular, it is often boiled with sugar, producing red bean paste, a very common ingredient in all of these cuisines. It also is common to add flavoring to the bean paste, such as chestnut.   Red bean paste is used in many Chinese dishes, such as tangyuan, zongzi, mooncakes, baozi, and red bean ice.  It also serves as a filling in Japanese sweets such as anpan, dorayaki, imagawayaki, manjū, monaka, anmitsu, taiyaki, and daifuku.   A more liquid version, using adzuki beans boiled with sugar and a pinch of salt, produces a sweet dish called hong dou tang.  Some East Asian cultures enjoy red bean paste as a filling or topping for various kinds of waffles, pastries, baked buns, or biscuits.  Adzuki beans are commonly eaten sprouted or boiled in a hot, tea-like drink.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adzuki_bean   

How to make Adzuki Bean Coconut Curry (vegan, gluten-free)  by Kristen Wood at https://moonandspoonandyum.com/adzuki-bean-curry/    

smallfolk pl (plural only)  noun  (fantasy, mythology) Small humanoid creatures, such as gnomes and halflings.  Synonyms:  little folk, little people, small people  Translations:  small humanoid creatures — see little person  Further reading:  little people (mythology) on Wikipedia.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smallfolk#English    

Imitation of Life is a 1934 American drama film directed by John M. Stahl.  The screenplay by William Hurlbut, based on Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel of the same name, was augmented by eight additional uncredited writers, including Preston Sturges and Finley Peter Dunne.  The film stars Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson, and Fredi Washington.  The film was originally released by Universal Pictures on November 26, 1934, and re-released in 1936.  A 1959 remake of the same title was directed by Douglas Sirk.  In 2005, Imitation of Life was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".  It was also named by Time in 2007 as one of "The 25 Most Important Films on Race".  It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Assistant Director, and Best Sound Recording at the 7th Academy Awards.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imitation_of_Life_(1934_film)    

Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American children's author and cartoonist.  He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss.  His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.  Geisel adopted the name "Dr. Seuss" as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and as a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford.  He left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life, and various other publications.  He also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns, including for FLIT and Standard Oil, and as a political cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM.   He published his first children's book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1937.  During World War II, he took a brief hiatus from children's literature to illustrate political cartoons, and he worked in the animation and film department of the United States Army.  After the war, Geisel returned to writing children's books, writing acclaimed works such as If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960), The Sneetches and Other Stories (1961), The Lorax (1971), The Butter Battle Book (1984), and Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990).  He published over 60 books during his career, which have spawned numerous adaptations, including eleven television specials, five feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series.  He received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Children's Special for Halloween Is Grinch Night (1978) and Outstanding Animated Program for The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat (1982).  In 1984, he won a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.  His birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative focused on reading created by the National Education Association.   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2788  March 6, 2024 

Cooking with Franz Kafka by Valerie Stivers  In Franz Kafka’s first published story, “Description of a Struggle,” the narrator is sitting in a drawing room at a rickety little table, eating a piece of fruitcake that “did not taste very good,” when a man walks up to him.  The man is described as an “acquaintance,” but we soon realize he is a double, or another part of the narrator’s self.  The tension in Kafka between appetite and its fulfillment is a crucial aspect of the writer’s work.  Kafka’s characters are often hungry—the performer from “A Hunger Artist” has made starving himself into an art; Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis slowly stops eating and wastes away.  But their hunger is often not for the foods of this world.  Gregor refers to himself as hungering as for “an unknown nourishment.”  In The Metamorphosis, the food is controlled by Gregor’s family.  His father, mother, and beautiful young sister, Grete, spend most of the story seated at a table outside Gregor’s room, eating.  Gregor, in his grotesque new form, is not allowed at the table.  Yet he finds himself on the morning of his transformation to be “much hungrier than usual.”  Terrible as his metamorphosis is, it frees him from work and from being useful to his family, suggesting that he is showing a more authentic self.   Incidentally, Kafka in his lifetime refused to specify what kind of creature Gregor was and forbade any drawing or representation of him.  See recipes and pictures at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/02/22/cooking-with-franz-kafka/   

Gary Larson (born 1950) is an American cartoonist who created The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years.  The series ended with Larson's retirement on January 1, 1995.  In September 2019, his website alluded to a "new online era of The Far Side".  On July 8, 2020, Larson released three new comics, his first in 25 years.  His twenty-three books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than forty-five million copies.   Larson was born and raised in University Place, Washington, in suburban Tacoma, the son of Verner, a car salesman, and Doris, a secretary.  He graduated from Curtis Senior High School in University Place and from Washington State University in Pullman with a degree in communications.  During high school and college, he played jazz guitar and banjo.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Larson 

 

Industry City (also Bush Terminal) is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the Upper New York Bay waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.  The northern portion, commonly called "Industry City" on its own, hosts commercial light manufacturing tenants across 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m²) of space between 32nd and 41st Streets, and is operated by a private consortium.  The southern portion, known as "Bush Terminal", is located between 40th and 51st Streets and is operated by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) as a garment manufacturing complex.  Founded by Bush Terminal Company head Irving T. Bush in the early 20th century, Bush Terminal was the first facility of its kind in New York City and the largest multi-tenant industrial property in the United States.  The warehouses were built between 1892 and 1910, the railroad from 1896 to 1915, and the factory lofts between 1905 and 1925.  During World War I, Bush Terminal was used as a United States Navy base, and returned to private ownership after the war.  At its peak, Bush Terminal covered 200 acres (81 hectares), bounded by Gowanus Bay to the west and north, Third Avenue to the east, 27th Street to the north, and 50th Street to the south.  The surrounding area declined after World War II, and by the 1970s, the ports in Bush Terminal had been filled.  The complex was rebranded as Industry City during the post-war years, though the Bush Terminal name remained in popular use.  In the 1970s and 1980s, sections of Bush Terminal were demolished or converted for other uses, including a shopping mall, a federal prison, a privately operated manufacturing and commercial complex, and a garment manufacturing district operated by the NYCEDC.  Today, the Bush Terminal site comprises roughly 71 acres (29 ha), including 16 former factory buildings and 11 warehouses built in the early 20th century.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_City  Thank you, Muse reader!   

Lex (Latin) for ‘law’ 
Law (Viking, Icelandic) for ‘lex’  

The rule of ‘law’ is the glue which holds our society together.  But where did the word ‘law’ come from?  There is some deep history nested in the distinction between ‘lex’ and ‘law’.  Law is an old Viking word whereas the word lex is a more scholarly word with its origin in Latin.  Both have common Proto-Indo-European origins perhaps 7,000 years ago.  Lex derives from the Latin verb legō ‘to gather, take off, tear off, pick, roll up, look through, read’, denoting originally a ‘collection (of legal rules, principles)’.  Immediately, the connection to ‘legislator’ becomes apparent–as someone proposing law from above.  If we go back in time to the Roman empire with its military might and dominance, the power of the empire was administered and enforced by written laws and commands, supported by a vast bureaucracy that was so very sophisticated for its time.  During this era, lex therefore had a strong connection with reading and writing.  The word origin of ‘law’ means ‘something laid down, that which is fixed or set’.  The collective plural, literally translated, was ‘layer’.  ‘Lawyer’ perhaps also derived from the Old English ‘lahwita’, with wita meaning ‘sage, wise man, adviser, councilor’.  And so law might be imagined as layers of custom, accumulating over time and fixed in place like sedimentary rock.   https://www.leocussen.edu.au/lex-or-law/   

Grandma’s Irish Soda Bread  one loaf  total time:  55 minutes  optional:  one large egg; optional:  one cup raisins  Sally McKenney  See recipe at https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/grandmas-irish-soda-bread/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue  2787  March 4, 2024

A whippersnapper is a young person who is presumptuous, a young person who is overconfident.  The term whippersnapper is derived from the terms snipper-snapper and whip-snapper.  A whip-snapper was a seventeenth-century term for a young man with nothing better to do than to hang about idly snapping a whip.  Whippersnapper is one of those rare terms that has a somewhat literal origin.  Today, the term is usually used in an archaic sense or as a slightly humorous term.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the correct spelling is as one word, whippersnapper, though it is occasionally seen in its hyphenated form, whipper-snapper.   https://grammarist.com/usage/whippersnapper/  Thank you, Muse reader! 

Which is smaller--Delaware or Rhode Island?  Find the answer and see a complete list of the U.S. states, its federal district and its major territories ordered by total area, land area and water area.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area#  The water area includes inland waters, coastal waters, the Great Lakes and territorial waters.  Glaciers and intermittent bodies of water are counted as land area. 

If you like the smell of chrysanthemum flowers and the taste of tea brewed with the dried flower buds, then consider eating chrysanthemum greens.  You'll find the vegetable in any number of Asian markets—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian—during the spring to autumn seasons.  (Keep your eyes peeled, as it is sometimes referred to as crown daisy.)  If the greens are young and fresh, you can enjoy both the leaves and stalks raw in salads.  Young greens should have stalks that are no wider than 1/8-inch in diameter—any wider, and the taste is too bitter and strong to be eaten raw. Chichi Wang  https://www.seriouseats.com/seriously-asian-chrysanthemum-greens  Thank you, Muse reader!  

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved--loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. - Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (26 Feb 1802-1885) 

“He marks his place in books by folding over the corners of the page.  Burn his letters and send back the ring!  I cannot marry a monster!”  “Overdue books are dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.”  Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld  Thank you, Muse reader!  

February 13, 2024  The traditional diet of northern Portugal and northwestern Spain, known as the Southern European Traditional Atlantic Diet, or Atlantic diet for short, may hold some clues to better heart health and a lower risk of dying early from cancer, heart disease or any cause, according to studies conducted in Europe.  The latest study, published recently in the journal JAMA Network Open, found the diet also modestly reduced the incidence of metabolic syndrome, a combination of higher blood pressure, blood sugars, triglycerides and belly fat that raises the risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and other serious health conditions.  The diet is based on foods grown or found in that part of the Europe, much like its famous cousin the Mediterranean diet.   Sandee LaMotte  https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/health/atlantic-diet-explainer-wellness/index.html  

Alan Kay, the famed computer scientist, says he didn’t really know what the term “computer science” meant in 1966, when he read a lengthy description of a programming language written by a Swiss computer scientist named Niklaus Wirth.  The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2024   Niklaus Emil Wirth (15 February 1934–1 January 2024) was a Swiss computer scientist.  He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering.  In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science, "for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth  See also https://awards.acm.org/turing  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2786  February 26, 2024 

A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village.  This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement.  Sometimes a hamlet is defined for official or administrative purposes.  In that case, its size relative to a parish or other administrative unit will depend on the administration and region.  The word and concept of a hamlet can be traced back to Norman England, where the Old French hamelet came to apply to small human settlements.  The word comes from Anglo-Norman hamelet, corresponding to Old French hamelet, the diminutive of Old French hamel meaning a little village.  This, in turn, is a diminutive of Old French ham, possibly borrowed from (West Germanic) Franconian languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_(place)    

Purchase is a hamlet in the town and village of Harrison, in Westchester County, New York, United States.  One myth explains that its name is derived from Harrison's purchase, where John Harrison was to be granted as much land as he could ride in one day.  Purchase is home to State University of New York at Purchase and Manhattanville College and is one of the richest communities on the east coast.  In 1695, John Harrison, a Quaker from Flushing " . . . purchased of the Indians a tract of land about nine miles in length and nearly three in width . . .  The Indians reserved 'such whitewood trees as shall be found suitable to make canoes of . . .  "  Large numbers of Friends came to settle there.  They called it "Harrison's Purchase," or simply "The Purchase" and it is still known today as Purchase, NY. A Quaker meeting house was erected there in 1727.  In 1967, 200 residents stated support for a plan to incorporate Purchase so corporations could not build in the community.  In response, officials from the Town of Harrison put forward plans to try to become a city in an attempt to stop Purchase from seceding from the Town of Harrison.  There are many historic sites located in Purchase.  The grave of Revolutionary War General Thomas Thomas is located on the grounds of SUNY Purchase.  The grounds that SUNY Purchase now occupies was once Strathglass Farms, a dairy farm.  The Quaker Friends Meeting house was founded in the 18th century.  The original building fell victim to fire years ago and the present one is an accurate reconstruction.  Before the headquarters of Pepsi was built, the Blind Brook Polo Club was located on that site.  Amelia Earhart flew her plane from the polo grounds.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase,_New_York 

Lloyd Arrington Sparks (1933–February 11, 2024), known professionally as Randy Sparks, was an American musician, singer-songwriter, and founder of The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority.  His first musical engagement was at the Purple Onion in San Francisco.  In 1960, he formed a trio called "The Randy Sparks Three", and they released an album of the same name.  Sparks wrote "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio", which was recorded and made famous by John Denver.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Sparks    

Presidents' Day, officially Washington's Birthday at the federal governmental level, is a holiday in the United States celebrated on the third Monday of February.  It is often celebrated to honor all those who served as presidents of the United States and, since 1879, has been the federal holiday honoring Founding Father George Washington, who led the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was the first U.S. president.   The day is an official state holiday in most states, with names including Washington's Birthday, Presidents' Day, President's Day, Presidents Day, and Washington's and Lincoln's Birthday.  The various states use 15 different names.  Depending upon the specific law, the state holiday may officially celebrate Washington alone, Washington and Abraham Lincoln, or some other combination of U.S. presidents (such as Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who was born in April).   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidents%27_Day   

cater-cousin  noun 

A person who, while not being a blood relation, is regarded as close enough to be called a cousin; a (very) close or good friend; a bosom friend.

(figurative) A thing which is closely associated with or related to another thing.  Wiktionary  February 19, 2024    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2785  February 19, 2024   

Calabacitas (which translates to “little squash” in English) is a Mexican dish made from sauteed zucchini or squash, corn, tomatoes and peppers.  It’s often served as a side dish, but is substantial enough to be served as a main vegetarian meal alongside some homemade flour tortillas.  There are many variations of this dish throughout Mexico and the southwestern United States.   Some versions don’t include tomatoes, some are plain and feature only the sauteed vegetables, and some include a flavorful cooking liquid that doubles as a sauce.  Recipe by Isabel serving six at https://www.isabeleats.com/calabacitas-recipe/    

Is it OK to say you’re the best person in the world when you know are not?  (paraphrase of a joke told on Saturday Night Live)   

Eleanore Cammack "Cammie" King (1934–2010) was an American actress and public relations officer.  She is best known for her portrayal of Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).  She also provided the voice for the doe Faline as a fawn in the animated Disney film, Bambi (1942).  Though King's acting career only spanned years, she appeared in two of the biggest films of the era, Gone with the Wind and Bambi.  She landed the part of Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone With the Wind at the age of four, after casting directors had tested 250 applicants for the role, including her seven-year-old sister Diane.  After Diane was deemed too old for the part, she told the staff, "My sister looks like me and is only four and she can read lines".  Cammie did remember her lines, but she was unable to keep her eyelids from moving during Bonnie's death scene and was fitted with a death mask.  An adult male small person served as a body double for Bonnie's fall from the horse.   Reflecting on her film career, she once joked, "I peaked at 5".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cammie_King   

The University of Minnesota Libraries is the library system of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, operating at 12 facilities in and around Minneapolis–Saint Paul.  It has over 8 million volumes and 119,000 serial titles that are collected, maintained and made accessible.  The system is the 17th largest academic library in North America and the 20th largest library in the United States.  While the system's primary mission is to serve faculty, staff and students, because the university is a public institution of higher education its libraries are also open to the public.  The Libraries hold a variety of notable, specialized and unusual collections.  Examples include the world's largest assembly of materials on Sherlock Holmes and his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; the Kerlan Collection of over 100,000 children's books;  the Hess Collection, one of North America's largest collections of dime novels, story papers and pulp fiction; the James Ford Bell Library of rare maps, books and manuscripts, and the seventh largest law library in the United States, including over 1 million volumes and personal papers such as those of Clarence Darrow.  The system is a Federal Depository Library, a State of Minnesota Depository Library and United Nations Depository Library.  Among research institutions, it maintains the second-largest collection of government documents in North America.  The University of Minnesota was awarded the National Medal for Museum and Library Service in 2017.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Minnesota_Libraries

Lager is a type of beer originated in Bavaria, which has been brewed and conditioned at low temperature.  Lagers can be pale, amber, or dark.  Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. The term "lager" comes from the German word for "storage", as the beer was stored before drinking, traditionally in the same cool caves in which it was fermented.  As well as maturation in cold storage, most lagers are distinguished by the use of Saccharomyces pastorianus, a "bottom-fermenting" yeast that ferments at relatively cold temperatures.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lager   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2784  February 16, 2024