One also could not easily kneel, or pray, in such shoes, which were sometimes known as “Satan’s claws.” In 1215, Pope Innocent III prohibited clergy members from wearing, among other things, “shoes with embroidery or pointed toes.” The edict was unsuccessful enough that Pope Urban V tried again in 1362. Poulaines swept into England in…
I received an email last week from a reader named Esmeralda in Madrid, who wrote that the summers there are quite hot: “We need to cook cool meals and using the oven is completely forbidden.” She’s been making creamy salmorejo, a close relative of gazpacho from Córdoba in southern Spain — which, she noted, gets…
A festive cape, draped from your shoulders, paired with a dress and glitzy heels while you sip on mulled wine. That’s the sort of scene Macy’s was envisioning for holiday parties in 2020, before the reality of Zoom nights in living rooms. “We really felt good about this dress-up opportunity, people really feeling glam,” said…
These “amelioration techniques” were dishonest and fraudulent, as the producers tried to pass off their blends as Bordeaux or Burgundy. Penfolds, of course, is doing nothing of the sort. It’s transparent with its marketing and “Wine of the World” labeling. And with suggested retail prices of $149 a bottle for the Bin 149 and $700…
People might be going to restaurants and having friends over for dinner again, but are they ready to gather around a communal dip bowl with crackers and carrot sticks in hand? The answer will vary depending on the situation and how comfortable you are with the people who will be sharing the dip. But whether…
Extreme conditions California burned with a fury last summer and fall. The wildfire season, the state’s worst on record, started earlier, with fires spreading faster and tearing up areas that previously had been thought to be protected from or at least resistant to blazes, ultimately burning more than four million acres. Fire is nothing new…
Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. To Tell the Truth? It is not unusual for my new firm to interview candidates from my old firm and I am often asked what I think of…
WASHINGTON — Something surreal was happening on the Potomac one recent night. A big white tent erected outside the Kennedy Center seemed to be a portal back in time. Underneath it, young men clamored to have their picture taken with Paul Ryan. White House aides worked a tuxedoed crowd. Ballerinas twirled before a Supreme Court…
If Lee Sanderlin didn’t want to spend 15 hours in a Waffle House, with tens of thousands of people on Twitter joining him in his intestinal shame, he should have been better at fantasy football. Such is the life lesson the internet imparted on Thursday and Friday, when Mr. Sanderlin, 25, tweeted along as he…
But manufacturing problems at a factory in Baltimore run by Emergent BioSolutions, Johnson & Johnson’s subcontractor, have had serious consequences for the vaccine. Because of a major production mishap that resulted in a two-month shutdown in operations, Johnson & Johnson has essentially been forced to sit out the brunt of the pandemic in the United…