Michael Twitty can trace his family’s food history back to the slave cabins and Antebellum kitchens of the South. Honoring his diasporic heritage — he’s both black and Jewish — lead Twitty to the practice of identity cooking. He calls it Kosher/Soul.More
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Interviews By Topic
Chef, author, and Netflix star Samin Nosrat developed her own philosophy of cooking, based on a few universal principles: salt, fat, acid and heat. She says it allows us to cook by following our taste buds, rather than a recipe book.More
David Nutt believes psychedelics will revolutionize the treatment of mental disorders. A neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London, he says psychedelic therapy can help people resolve their buried traumas.More
Celebrated curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has a vision: get art out of galleries and into the real world.More
If you’re a music-loving teen in a tiny town with no music scene, Bandcamp is a lifesaver. JJ Skolnik, senior editor of the Bandcamp Daily, weighs the pros and cons of online music communities.More
Photographer Matt Lambros takes us inside America’s abandoned movie palaces.More
Lawrence Ross delved into the "Green Book," a 1957 handbook to help black motorists find safe stops along the highway, and used it to shape a contemporary road trip that celebrated black history, culture, and business.More
John Jeremiah Sullivan reads an abridged version of his essay, "You Blow My Mind. Hey, Mickey!" about getting high at Disney World.More
Finn Murphy talks about his career as a long-haul driver who moves people's possessions across the country.More
"Dear Committee Members" author Julie Schumacher recommends Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago's retelling of a true tale.More
Manal al-Sharif on how the most transgressive thing a Saudi woman could do was learn to drive.More
Missy Makinia donated her kidney to whoever might need it. Her transplant surgeon — Josh Mezrich — invited Shannon into his operating room to see firsthand what it takes to remove and transport a human kidney.More
Gavin Francis is fascinated by the complexity and beauty of the human body, which is so finely engineered that it can seem almost miraculous.More
Porochista Khakpour has been fighting a mystery illness for as long as she can remember. Eventually, she got a diagnosis — late-stage Lyme disease — but a diagnosis hasn't given her much resolution.More
Our producer Charles Monroe-Kane has a passion for ravens. The raven has meaning for him from legend and art, to the point where he’s had one tattooed on his forearm.More
Christopher Benfey tells Anne Strainchamps why there was a hummingbird craze in 19th century Massachsetts, how artists and poets used them as symbols, and why they seem like winged jewels.More
Jennifer Ackerman writes in her new book "What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds" about how owls are cryptic, hard to find, and difficult to understand. Speaking to Shannon Henry Kleiber, she said that’s part of the attraction.More
The feminist eco-philosopher Val Plumwood was one of the few people to survive a crocodile's death roll. The attack reoriented her thinking about life, death, and what it means to be human.More