Helen Andrews

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 »

The political blogosphere tends to treat social science very, very nicely, even when social science is being ridiculous (e.g. “Heritability of eating bread in Danish and Finnish men and women,” which the National Affairs blog did not want you to miss ). I suppose it’s because so . . . . Continue Reading »

From Shiva Naipaul’s travel essay about the Seychelles, “Fall from Innocence”: He refers to a fifty-rupee note adorned with a group of emblematic coconut trees. When examined from a certain angle, the fronds patterned themselves into the letters S-E-X. (I was given a tie adorned . . . . Continue Reading »

The Chamber of Commerce in Britt, Iowa, is backing off its proposal to help out with the National Hobo Convention, which has been held annually in Britt for the last hundred years and organized by the Chamber for a number of those. Why? Because the budget proposal submitted by the hobo-convention . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m glad that my disability article has been so well - received , but reader after reader has pointed to one unanswered question — actually, two unanswered questions that mean the same thing. (Don’t worry — these questions make sense even if you haven’t read the . . . . Continue Reading »