Helen Andrews

Beet risotto is a cultural incongruity. They don’t grow a lot of arborio rice in the borschtophagous regions of Eastern Europe, and if you look up “beets” in the encyclopedia of Italian cuisine, the first thing it will tell you is that they are used “in dishes like insalata . . . . Continue Reading »

In the late 1920s, T. E. Lawrence contemplated writing a biography of Sir Roger Casement, with whom he had much in common — both were famous for speaking out on behalf of dark-skinned men treated badly by empires, and for having sex with them. Casement’s career was extraordinary even . . . . Continue Reading »

The compliance specialist from Buffalo, N.Y., who became prime minister of Somalia has got nothing on this guy. From King Zog: Self-Made Monarch of Albania (p. 66): The new regime in Tirana was a motley coalition of liberals, Kosovars, opposition beys, and mutineers, united by antipathy to Zogu. . . . . Continue Reading »

Long before I read his memoir , the first thing I ever knew about the actor Sterling Hayden was what my father told me when we watched Dr. Strangelove — that the man who played the screw-loose Commie-hating General Ripper had once been a Communist himself, had named names to HUAC, and . . . . Continue Reading »

D.C. city councilman Harry Thomas Jr. knows where he stands . Ditto Jack Evans of Ward 2: “I don’t want to solve global warming . . . I just want bacon with my breakfast.” These are the same comedians who swapped interpretations of the Nativity story  on the City Council . . . . Continue Reading »

The saddest author bio for a magazine editor to encounter is one that says “So-and-so is working on a biography of X,” especially if X is the subject of the article the bio is attached to. The only way to deal with a byline like that is to smile and say, well, fella, I sure hope that . . . . Continue Reading »

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 »