The famous Sherlock Holmes sandwich

Perhaps it's the summer doldrums, but yesterday's hottest Sherlockian news came from the Montreal Gazette: a recipe for "Six O'Clock Solution: Steak sandwiches from Sherlock Holmes's pantry!"

Sherlock likes his beef. "Some cold beef and a glass of beer" are the only arrangements he needs in "A Scandal in Bohemia." And even Dr. Watson saw it as an excellent prescription, as he did in "Engineer's Thumb when he diagnosed "he looks as if a little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm."

But the Montreal Gazette, via a cookbook called A Literary Tea Party, cites "Beryl Coronet" and my favorite Sherlock Holmes culinary moment: Sherlock Holmes making a "rude meal" that he stuffs in his pocket from "two rounds of bread" and a slice of room temperature beef.

For me, this always seemed a Sherlockian excuse to hit the Arby's drive-thru, but the recipe from a food blogger named Alison Walsh adds a custom horseradish spread to Sherlock's Canonical recipe to give it a little flair.

Yes, you read that right . . . the "Beryl Coronet," when you come right down to it, has an actual recipe in it. It only has two ingredients, but it's Sherlock's own, and far preferable to that other recipe he explained involving seven-per-cent of something.

So . . . now the best news for Sherlockian vegans, but like I said. Summer doldrums.