Page 72 Daily Mail, Thursday, March 5, 2020
questions
Savoury version
of French toast.
Serves: 2.A maid who
had it made
Compiled by Charles LeggeCompiled by James Blacktoday’s recipe: pain
perdu with confit leeks
MethodQuESTIoN
Is it true that
Walt Disney’s
housekeeper was one of america’s
richest women?
WALT DISNEY’S housekeeper Thelma
Pearl Howard was a multi-millionaire due
to gifts of shares in the media and
entertainment conglomerate.
Born in 1914 as the second of five
children to a poor farming family in Idaho,
her young life was marred by tragedy.
When Thelma was six, her mother died
during childbirth and one of her sisters
was killed when she opened a stove and
her dress caught fire.
Thelma got a place at business college
in Spokane, Washington State, and hoped
to become a legal secretary, but ran out
of money and was forced to drop out.
In 1931, she moved to Los Angeles to be
a cleaner. She was briefly married and
had a son, Michael, who suffered from a
developmental disability and was sent to
a special boarding school.
In 1951, she was hired as a live-in house-
keeper for Walt Disney, his wife Lillian
and their two children at their sprawling
estate in Holmby Hills, California.
Thelma was punctilious and reliable —
she always kept the fridge stocked with
the hot dogs Walt loved — was a fine cook
and became a confidante and friend to
the Disney children and grandchildren.
Walt called her ‘the real-life Mary
Poppins,’ though the family’s nickname
for her was Fou-Fou, the closest one of
th e g r a n d c h i l d r e n c o u l d c o m e t o
pronouncing Thelma.
She was paid a decent housekeeper’s
salary and every Christmas and birthday
Walt gave her Disney shares as a bonus.
In 1981, Thelma retired to a modest,
two -bedroom bungalow in West Los
Angeles. She later moved to a nursing
home where she died in 1994.
After her death, it was discovered that
she had never sold any of her Disney
stock, which through various splits
had grown to 192,755 shares worth more
than $9 million.
This did not make her one of America’s
richest women — there were ten female
billionaires in the U.S. by the Nineties —
but Thelma was certainly very wealthy. In
her will, half of her estate was left to herson, then in his mid-50s and living in a
home for the disabled. The other half was
used to create the Thelma Pearl Howard
Foundation to benefit disadvantaged and
homeless children.
Kathy Grigg, Fareham, Hants.QuESTIoN
Is eating an apple
more effective at
waking you up in the morning than a
cup of coffee?
AN APPLE can’t rival the jolt of a cup of
coffee. There are 100 milligrams of caf-
feine in a cup of coffee and its effects can
be felt within 30 to 60 minutes, depending
if it’s drunk on an empty stomach.
Caffeine stimulates alertness and can
improve mood by blocking the adenosine
receptors in our brain that cause sleepi-
ness. But it can also mimic adrenaline
and leave us jittery and unable to sleep.
Current evidence suggests up to four
cups a day is safe for healthy adults, but
it depends on the individual.
An apple contains 13g of sugar in the
form of fructose. This won’t provide the
stimulating effects of coffee, but it will
provide a slow, sustained energy release
that won’t make you feel anxious or
reduce your sleep quality. Apples are also
rich in fibre and vitamin C.
Andrew Courtney, Halifax, W. Yorks.QuESTIoN
on ELo’s
comeback single
all My Love, Jeff Lynne sings the title
more than 20 times. Do any other
records repeat their title as often?
SoUL singer Bill Withers released Lovely
Day in December 1977. It reached No. 7 inthe UK singles’ chart, but only No. 30 in
the U.S. A re-mix peaked at No. 4 in the
UK in 1988.
What is remarkable about the song is
that, with a repeated chorus, the phrase
‘lovely day’ occurs 103 times before the
grooves run out.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby, Lincs.
JoHN Lydon’s Public Image Limited
may be the most under-rated band of all
time, overshadowed by its punk forbear
the Sex Pistols.
The 1984 album This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get includes the
mesmerising closing song The order of
Death, which features the name of the
album repeated 74 times.
Darren O’Connor, Stirling.
DAFT Punk’s release Around The World
repeats the title 72 times. There are no
other lyrics.
Graeme Jefferson, Fareham, Hants.
IN THE song Maria from West Side Story,
Stephen Sondheim gets Tony to sing ‘I’ll
never stop saying Maria’ and he doesn’t
— 28 times.
Mike Ellis, Meols, Wirral.
IN I’M A Tiger, which entered the charts
in November 1968, Lulu repeats the title
46 times.
I know this as I counted and wrote this
fact on the record sleeve at the time. I
still have it in my collection.
John Davies, Wokingham, Berks.
BEING a huge fan of ELo, I recently
listened to an entertaining programme
about songwriters on Radio 2 in which
the talented Jeff Lynne was interviewed
by Gary Barlow.
Lynne was possibly only half-joking
when he said that as soon as he’s happy
with the music he’s composed, he would
prefer there to be no lyrics because they
don’t mean a great deal to him.
This may account for the repetitive
nature of some of ELo’s songs, including
Evil Woman, which repeats the title 22
times, plus a further four times by the
backing singers.
Having said that, if ELo’s music had
been instrumental only, just think of all
the brilliant songs that their fans would
have been deprived of, most famously,
Mr Blue Sky.
Barbara Higgs, Marlow Bottom, Bucks.
: If you could harness a fork of
lightning, what could it power and
for how long?
John Sullivan, Glasgow.
: To maximise photosynthesis,
would it be better to plant more
evergreens than deciduous trees?
Mike Horgan, Heswall, Wirral.
: What is the smallest number of
MPs to have taken part in a debate
in the House of Commons?
David Younger, Braintree, Essex.QQQingredientsLoyal: Thelma and son Michael in 1941
80g butter
1 tsp Dijon mustard
8 baby leeks
½ small bunch of
parsley, chopped
½ tbsp capers,
drained
4 eggs50ml milk
60g Parmesan, grated
4 thick slices bread
Vegetable oil,
for frying1 Melt 60g butter in a frying pan over a medium
heat. Whisk in 80ml water and mustard. Add
leeks, season, reduce heat to low and cover.
Cook for 25 minutes or until tender. Remove
from heat, stir through parsley and capers,
and keep warm.
2 Poach two of the eggs. Beat other eggs with
milk and half the Parmesan. Season. Pour into
a bowl, then soak each slice of bread, turning
once. Heat remaining butter in frying pan with
a drizzle of oil. Fry bread until golden brown.
3 Top with leeks, pan juices, poached eggs and
a sprinkling of Parmesan.
n RECIPE of the Day brought to you in association
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