Bee Wilson

The main influence on a child's palate may no longer be a parent but a series of food manufacturers whose products - despite their illusion of infinite choice - deliver a monotonous flavour hit, quite unlike the more varied flavours of traditional cuisine.

In the right circumstances, I'm a big fan of eating alone. Often, on a Sunday evening, I go to a yoga class whose charm is largely that it gives me an alibi to avoid cooking family supper for once. I return to have boiled eggs and soldiers in silence with a book. Bliss.

The way to an American economic comeback, the way to help those out of work today find a paycheck, is to unleash the forces of job creation in America. The source of new jobs isn't going to be the bureaucracies of Washington, but rather the creativity, ingenuity, and hard work of the American people.

Throughout the '90s and early 2000s, our financial industry and governments leaned on a snake-oil mirage of wealth creation, a bubble predicated on the obvious falsehood that things could only get better.