Helen Andrews

History Today has a piece out called ” American Pie: The Imperialism of the Calorie ,” the story of the statistical regimentation of food. It started with the invention of the calorimeter (pictured), which was an American invention, of course. The native cuisine of the U.S. has . . . . Continue Reading »

Fatalism is a distinct flavor of the conservative disposition, but the distinction between fatalism and plain-vanilla standpattism usually doesn’t matter, since they arrive at the same principle by different routes: We shouldn’t do anything we can’t predict all the consequences . . . . Continue Reading »

I have no idea if the Sunday Telegraph ’s allegations against Phillip Blond are true. For all I know, it’s some disgruntled employee who’s behind the stories that Blond is a high-living rock star who likes to take hot women on vacation to Sharm El Sheikh, that he “asked a . . . . Continue Reading »

If you are a Staffordshire bull terrier and your crime was committed in the U.K., then yes . “Diesel” mauled a ten-year-old boy earlier this summer, and according to something very silly called the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991, he ought to have been put down. But Diesel was granted a . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1735, Anne Hutchinson and her husband started a home Bible-study group, which started small but grew to include about sixty people. This was noticed first by their neighbors, then by the state, neither of whom liked the idea of unlicensed preaching going on in a private home. (Also, she was a . . . . Continue Reading »

I made a version of this recipe . Unfortunately, I am not as talented as the chefs who came up with it, so my stew was more of a learning experience. What I learned was this. 1. Don’t undercook your rabbit. The man of the house tells me constantly that the whole point of a crockpot is that . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s true, he did! Dmitry Bibikow of Harare, Zimbabwe, and originally of Voronezh, has been wheelchair-bound since a climbing accident, which is a problem because his apartment is on the fifth floor. The local council still hadn’t installed a promised elevator after six years, so he . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s something you might not know: If a cheese expert tells you that NASA once called him up to ask, “Why are the Russians sending parmigiano-reggiano into space with their cosmonauts?” all kinds of Cold War embellishments will leap to mind and you will have a very hard time . . . . Continue Reading »

I started reading Philip Mason’s memoir because I wanted to hear his stories about the Indian Civil Service between 1928 and independence. But before the book gets to Mason’s India years, there is a chapter on his schooldays, mostly portraits of the masters he knew at Stancliffe: the . . . . Continue Reading »

You probably thought that you had to wake up too early when you were a teenager. Everyone does. But the thing that made my bleary-eyed whimpering special — the difference between you and me — is that far from being mere whining, mine was, I now know, backed up by scientific fact. This . . . . Continue Reading »