Please Explain (The Leonard Lopate Show)

How did cats get domesticated? Why are they so popular on the internet? Are they good or evil?

If you have wanted to know the answers to these questions, and more, tune in to our latest Please Explain, which is all about cats. We're joined by Abigail Tucker, correspondent for Smithsonian Magazine, and author of The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World.

There are over 200 varieties of peppers, ranging from shishitos to habaneros. For our latest Please Explain, we dig into the world (and health benefits) of peppers with three-time James Beard Award-winning chef, culinary historian and author Maricel Presilla. She’s the author of Peppers of the Americas: The Remarkable Capsicums That Forever Changed Flavor, which explores the history of peppers and the many dishes you can make with them.

Vinegar often plays an essential role in the food we eat. We use it in everything from baking to braising to pickling. But, author Michael Harlan Turkell writes that vinegar is "underappreciated and little understood." For his new book Acid Trip: Travels in the World of Vinegar: With Recipes from Leading Chefs, Insights from Top Producers, and Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Make Your Own, Turkell set out to give vinegar its due. He traveled the world, learning how countries from Japan to France make and use vinegar. He also collected recipes from chefs who are using vinegar in exciting, different and delicious ways. He joins us for our latest Please Explain to discuss vinegar's many uses and how you can make your own at home.

Micheal Harlan Turkell will appear in conversation with Francine Segan, Ivan Orkin and Neil Kleinberg at the 92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.) on Dec. 7 at 7 p.m.

Check out a recipe from Michael Harlan Turkell's Acid Trip below!

OEUFS EN MEURETTE, FROM BERTRAND A UBOYNEAU,

BISTROT PAUL BERT, PARIS, FRANCE SERVES 4

This dish takes the concept of bourguignon sauce and uses it to poach eggs. What you’re left with is the same rich stock, adding the decadence of a creamy egg yolk, with a side of toast to sop it all up. Bertrand, always in need of acidity, uses a portion of red wine vinegar in place of some of the red wine, which gives a much lighter quality to a dish that usually invites a postprandial nap, and instead has you feeling like conquering the day ahead.

¼ pound (115 g) THICK SMOKED BACON, cut into lardoons

1 tablespoon BUTTER

¼ pound (115 g) WHITE PEARL ONIONS, peeled, tops and bottoms trimmed

1 clove GARLIC, crushed

¼ pound (115 g) BUTTON MUSHROOMS, cleaned, cut into quarters

3 cups (720 ml) RED WINE, such as Burgundy, Beaujolais, Cabernet

1 branch THYME

1 cup (240 ml) RED WINE VINEGAR

4 EGGS, kept in shell, cold

BLACK PEPPER

PARSLEY LEAVES, optional

TOAST and BUTTER

In a large saucepan over medium heat, render the bacon for 5 to 7 minutes, until it’s just browning but not burning. If it’s cooking too fast, lower the temperature. Pour out all but about

1 tablespoon of the fat (reserve the excess to cook with another time) and set the bacon aside (you’ll add it back in later, so try not to snack on it too much). Add the butter, onions, and garlic

and cook for about 1 minute, until aromatic. Lower the heat to medium-low, add the mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the red wine, scrape the bottom of the pan to release the fond, and add the thyme. Bring back to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, or until reduced by a third. Add the red wine vinegar and continue to cook for another 30 minutes. (If it’s too acidic for your taste, add ¼ cup water at a time until it’s not.)

To poach the eggs, either in the pot of sauce itself (if you don’t mind a few stray pieces of egg white) or in a separate pot of water, bring the liquid to a bare boil. Make a small pinprick

on the larger end of each egg, place in the liquid, and cook for 30 seconds (a Julia Child tip); this is just to set the whites. Remove the eggs and crack them into individual small bowls. Slide the

eggs back into the pot to poach them. If you like a soft yolk, cook for only a few minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the eggs and set aside. In individual serving bowls, evenly distribute the onion and mushroom mixture, then pour a bit of the sauce, enough to cover an egg, into the bowl as well. Place the eggs into the bowls and garnish with the bacon, freshly cracked black pepper, and parsley, if using.

Bon appetit!

Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of The Leonard Lopate Show.

For this week’s Please Explain, James Peterson stops by to talk sauces. He’s an award-winning food writer, cookbook author, photographer and cooking teacher who started his career as a restaurant cook in Paris in the 1970s. His book, Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, has just been released in its fourth edition. James will answer all of our burning sauce-related queries – from béarnaise and hollandaise, to bolognese, crème anglaise, and everything in between. 

Check out some of James Peterson's sauce recipes below!

SAUCE BÉCHAMEL The amount of roux per given amount of milk depends on the use of the sauce. Thick  versions,  used  as  the  base  thickener  in  traditional  soufflé  recipes,  often  call  for  as  much  as  8  ounces  (250  grams)  of  roux  per  quart  (liter)  of  milk,  whereas  béchamel-based  soups  use  approximately  2  ounces  (60  grams)  per  quart  (liter)  of  milk. This recipe produces a medium-thick sauce, appropriate for vegetable gratins.

YIELD: 1 QUART (1 LITER)

INGREDIENTS                                                                   

milk           1 quart                  1 liter

butter        3 ounces              90 grams

flour          ¹⁄³ cup                  80 milliliters

seasonings (salt, pepper, nutmeg; optional)      to taste                to taste

1. Bring  the  milk  to  a  simmer  in  a  2-quart  (2  liter)  saucepan.  Whisk  it  from  time  to  time  to  prevent  a  skin  from  forming  on  its  surface  (see  Note).

2. In a second 2-quart (2 liter) saucepan, gently melt the butter and add the flour. Stir the butter and flour over medium heat for about 2 minutes, until the flour has a pleasant, toasty smell. (A) Remove from the heat for about 30 seconds to cool slightly.

3. Whisk the simmering milk into the roux.  Return the sauce to the stove and bring it back to a simmer while whisking. (B)

4. Once  the  sauce  has  returned  to  a  slow  simmer, turn down the heat and move the saucepan so  that  only  one  side  is  over  the  flame.  (This will cause a skin to form on only one side of the sauce’s surface, making it easy to skim.) Cook the sauce gently for 30 minutes to 1 hour, skimming off the skin. It is a good idea also to occasionally rub around the bottom and corners of the sauce-pan  with  a  wooden  spoon  to  prevent  the  sauce  from scalding.

5. When the starchy taste has cooked out of the sauce, it can be seasoned and strained, depending on its final use.  Béchamel should be stirred while it is cooling to prevent a skin from forming on its surface. Putting the pan over a tray of ice will, of course, speed cooling.

Note: Some chefs do not first bring the milk to a simmer and instead pour cold milk, all at once, over the roux.  This  method  saves  time—and  a  pot—but  be  sure  to  whisk  the  sauce  vigorously  to prevent lumps and skin from forming.

VARIATIONS

Use a pretreated flour such as Wondra.  Simply  mix the  Wondra  (the  same  amount  as  flour  called for in the traditional recipe) in cold water until  smooth  (make  a  slurry).  Bring the milk to a simmer. Whisk in the slurry. Simmer until the sauce thickens. It should be smooth, but just in case, work it through a chinois.

While béchamel is a fairly stable sauce, there are times  (especially  if  the  flour  is  old)  when  it  will  break.  To avoid this, blend hydrocolloids into the finished sauce.  Lambda  carrageenan  lends  an  authentic  dairy-like  mouthfeel  to  the  sauce  and  is  easy  to  use.  Start by adding 1%  lambda  carrageenan to the sauce and build up as needed to get the thickness you want.

CAULIFLOWER GRATIN Béchamel  derivatives,  especially  Mornay  sauce,  make  excellent  toppings  for  gratins  because  they  brown  and  become  extremely  aromatic.  Practically any  vegetable can be pre-cooked slightly and then baked while covered with sauce.

YIELD: 6 SERVINGS

INGREDIENTS                                                                   

cauliflower, 1 large bunch or 2 small bunches

mornay sauce (SEE BELOW)                 1 quart                               1 liter

grated gruyère or similar cheese          1½ cups                              180 grams

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).  Cut the cauliflower into florets. Boil for about 5 minutes. Drain and transfer to a gratin dish just large enough to hold the cauliflower in a single layer.

2. Ladle the Mornay sauce in an even layer over the cauliflower. (A)

3. Sprinkle the cheese over the gratin.  (B)  Bake  until  a  golden  crust  forms  on  top,  about  30  minutes.

SAUCE MORNAY

Sauce  Mornay  is  usually  used  as  the  base  for  cheese  soufflés  or  for  gratins.  When  it  is  used  for  gratins,  additional  cheese  and  sometimes  breadcrumbs  and  butter  are  added  to  its  surface  to  encourage  the  formation  of  a  crust.  Sauce Mornay is made by adding grated cheese to sauce béchamel. Be sure to choose a full-flavored, well-aged cheese for this sauce. If the cheese is too young, the sauce will not only lack flavor but will be stringy. Classic  recipes  use  half  grated  Gruyère  and  half  grated  Parmesan  (at  least  three-year-old  Parmigiano-Reggiano),  but  the  sauce  can  be  made  with  other  well-aged,  honest  cheese.  English farmhouse Cheddar and Vermont Cheddar (not the commercial kind that has been dyed orange) both work well. Blue cheeses can also be incorporated into Mornay sauces, but be sure to taste and select them carefully to avoid some of the poor-quality  versions  that  have  a  coarse,  sour-milk  smell  and  flavor.  Select genuine Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola, Fourme d’Ambert, or Bleu d’Auvergne. Keep in mind that blue cheeses tend to make sauces a bit gray. To  prepare  Sauce  Mornay,  add  approximately  4  ounces  (115  to  125  grams)  cheese  per quart (liter) of béchamel. Stir the sauce just long enough for the cheese to melt; over-cooking the cheese can cause it to turn stringy. Some recipes call for finishing Mornay with egg yolks (about 2 per quart/liter of sauce). This is useful if the sauce is being used as a base for cheese soufflé, but otherwise the yolks contribute little to the sauce except unnecessary richness. At times, if the cheese is too young, a Sauce Mornay may break. To avoid this, you can  blend  hydrocolloid  stabilizers  (0.15%  percent  xanthan  gum  and  1%  lambda  carrageenan) into the béchamel before adding the cheese.

These recipes came from Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making by James Peterson. © Copyright 2017 by James Peterson. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

Our first Food Fridays Please Explain kicks off with vegan cooking! Ronen Seri and Pamela Elizabeth are the co-founders behind the vegan restaurant franchise Blossom and the authors of The Blossom Cookbook: Classic Favorites from the Restaurant That Pioneered a New Vegan Cuisine. They’ll debunk some myths about vegan food/cooking, offer tips for home cooks and share some of their most popular recipes including Trumpet Mushroom Calamari, Sweet Potato and Coconut Cream Soup, and German Chocolate Cake. 

Check out recipes from The Blossom Cookbook below!

Pine Nut–Crusted Eggplant

Eggplant is a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine. It is full of flavor, has a fantastic hearty texture, and is extremely versatile. Created as an inventive option for our gluten-free guests, this dish uses a combination of pine nuts and basil as the crust for the eggplant, and the creamy sauce is a wonderful finish. It’s sure to please and impress at any dinner party and is great for all seasons.

Serves 3 or 4

1 medium eggplant, halved and peeled

1½ tablespoons salt

3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes

2 cups pine nuts

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

Scant ¾ cup olive oil

4½ tablespoons chopped garlic

1½ teaspoons salt, plus more as needed

3 pinches of black pepper

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

1 sprig fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped

1 cup artichoke hearts

2/3 cup white wine

2 cups Cashew Cream (page 000)

1 head escarole

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Slice the peeled eggplant lengthwise into 1/2-inch slices (each half should yield 6 slices). Fill a deep bowl with water and add 1 tablespoon of the salt. Soak the eggplant slices in the water for 20 minutes to help remove any bitterness.

Bring a pot of water to boil and add the potatoes. Boil the potatoes for 30 to 40 minutes, or until soft, then remove and place in a large bowl.

While the potatoes are boiling and the eggplant is soaking, put the pine nuts, flour, and basil in a food processor. Process until the mixture has the consistency of bread crumbs. Transfer to a bowl and add 1½ tablespoons of the olive oil, 1½ tablespoons of the garlic, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Mix well.

Drain the eggplant and dredge the slices in the pine nut breading, making sure each slice is thoroughly coated. Set the breaded eggplant slices on a rack and let sit for 10 to 20 minutes to dry.

Meanwhile, mash the potatoes with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the garlic.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, rosemary, and artichoke hearts and sauté until the tomatoes begin to soften. Add 1/3 cup of the white wine and cook for 1 minute. Add the mashed potatoes and the salt and stir well.

In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the eggplant slices and pan-fry on each side until they begin to lightly brown. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 3 to 5 minutes to crisp.

Make the sauce: In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add ½ tablespoon of the garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the remaining 1/3 cup white wine, the Cashew Cream, and 1 tablespoon chopped basil and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add a pinch each of salt and pepper and stir.

In a separate medium skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add the remaining ½ tablespoon garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, then add the escarole and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes, or until soft.

To assemble, divide the sauce among three or four plates, then add the potato mixture, the escarole, and finally the eggplant slices on top.

Cashew Cream

Cashews . . . the cream of the crop! With their high healthy fat content, cashews are the best cream substitute, because when blended, they create an incredible richness for sauces. Who would ever think that an alfredo alternative could be so simple? One of our patrons’ most frequently asked questions is “How you do it?” when they eat our coveted fettuccini alfredo.

Note that you need to soak the cashews 3 hours (or overnight), so be sure to plan ahead.

Makes 6 to 7 cups

Ingredients

2 cups raw unsalted cashews, soaked for 3 hours or overnight

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon salt

1½ teaspoons black pepper

Put the drained cashews, nutritional yeast, olive oil, salt, pepper, and 4 cups water in a high-speed blender. Blend until creamy. The sauce will be relatively thin, but will thicken quickly when heated in a recipe.

Raw Key Lime Pie

The “key” to this dish is the fresh lime juice—accept no substitutions! You won’t believe the fantastic texture of this pie—the avocados add an unbelievable creaminess to the filling.

Makes one 9-inch pie

Ingredients

For the Crust

1¼ cups macadamia nuts

1¼ cups pecans

½ cup dried, pitted dates, soaked in water for 1 hour

Pinch of salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Filling

1½ cups fresh lime juice (from about 12 limes)

1 cup agave syrup

½ cup full-fat coconut milk

2 ripe avocados, halved, pitted, and peeled

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

1¼ cups coconut oil

Make the crust: Lightly grease a 9-inch springform baking pan with coconut oil.

Put the macadamia nuts, pecans, dates, salt, and vanilla in a food processor and process until the mixture is soft and easily workable. Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.

Make the filling: Put the lime juice, agave, coconut milk, avocados, vanilla, salt, and coconut oil in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth.

Pour the filling over the crust, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze overnight. Thaw before serving.

For our latest Please Explain, we explore what it means to be an introvert and what pressures they face when advancing their careers. We're joined by Morra Aarons-Mele, an internet marketer who has launched online campaigns for President Obama, Malala Yousafzai, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, and others. She’s also the author of Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert's Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home), and she shares strategies introverts can use to manage their anxieties while also achieving their goals.  

For this week's Please Explain, we explore how science is giving us a better understanding of how addiction works, and what that means for how we think about and treat it. We're joined by Fran Smith, author of "The Science of Addiction," National Geographic Magazine's September cover story. We're also joined by expert Dr. Rita Goldstein, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who is featured in the article. 

Note: Ilya Marritz guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

In a time when the president is openly attacking the press for negative stories and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville are claiming freedom of speech while protesting the removal of Confederate monuments, this week’s Please Explain is all about the First Amendment. Our guest is Floyd Abrams, author of The Soul of the First Amendment and a senior partner in the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He has argued in numerous high-profile, free-speech cases in front of the Supreme Court including Citizens United.

People spend about one-third of their lives asleep, but what actually happens when we close our eyes and begin to dream? For this week’s Please Explain we are joined by Wallace Mendelson to better help us understand. Mendelson is the former director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the University of Chicago and author of the new book The Science of Sleep: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters. He tell us about the different stages of sleep, sleeping disorders and how outside forces like alcohol and sleeping pills affect our rest. 

Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher join us to talk about their book Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life for our latest Please Explain about how our pets use science to survive. We explore the physics behind everything from how dogs lap up water to how ants use polarized light to navigate.

For this week's Please Explain, we’re discussing DACA with Hasan Shafiqullah, Attorney-In-Charge of the Immigration Law Unit at The Legal Aid Society. We're also joined by Pamela Resendiz, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico City, Mexico, and a community organizer who advocates for workers and immigrants’ rights in Colorado as the Deputy Director for United for a New Economy. They explain what DACA is, how it’s changing, who it affects and what can be done about it.

Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Cities and states across the country are either decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. As the cultural shift toward accepting pot progresses, we chat with journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis for our latest Please Explain about what this means for consumers, and how the industry could become big business for some companies. Chicago Lewis has written stories about the pot industry for publications like Rolling Stone ("Medical Marijuana: A Beginner’s Guide") and GQ ("The Great Pot Monopoly Mystery").

Note: DW Gibson guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show." 

For this week’s Please Explain, we explore a crime that affects millions of Americans each year: Identity theft. We're joined by Axton Betz-Hamilton, an assistant professor of consumer affairs at South Dakota State University, to discuss how easy it is for thieves to get a hold of your information and ruin your credit. Betz-Hamilton will also share her own personal story of how her identity was stolen when she was a child, how that put on a path to becoming an expert in the field, and how she discovered years later that the thief was her mother.

For our next Please Explain, Vybarr Cregan-Reid jogs us through the basics of running. Cregan-Reid, who authored the book Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human, reveals how running reconnects us to our bodies and helps us cleanse our minds. He explores the world’s most advanced running laboratories and research centers, and draws on literature, philosophy, neuroscience and biology to understand our passion for running.

Our latest Please Explain is about invisible currents that exist all around us with Bob Berman, author of the book Zapped: From Infrared to X-Rays, the Curious History of Invisible Light.

Do you have questions about x-rays or microwaves? Wondering about the upcoming solar eclipse on August 21? Write to us in the comments section below, or send us a question on Twitter or Facebook!

Jonathan Capehart guest hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

For this week’s Please Explain we explore the critical role coral reefs play in marine life and how they’re threatened by “coral bleaching," which is a sign of mass coral death. We’ll be joined by Jeff Orlowski, director of the new Netflix documentary “Chasing Coral," along with Ruth Gates, a scientist who appears in the film and is the director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

"Chasing Coral" is out now on Netflix.

In a pickle over how to make the best preserves? Don't worry! Our latest Please Explain is all about preserving with Emily Paster, author of The Joys of Jewish Preserving: Modern Recipes with Traditional Roots, for Jams, Pickles, Fruit Butters, and More--for Holidays and Every Day.

Melissa Clark guest hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Check out one of Emily Paster's recipes from The Joys of Jewish Preserving below!

Bene Israel Quick-Pickled Eggplant

Whether fried, baked, roasted, or stuffed, eggplant is one of the signature vegetables of Sephardic cuisine. Indeed, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British called eggplant ”the Jew’s apple” because it was so adored by the Sephardic Jews who were likely responsible for introducing the vegetable to their shores.

Eggplant has always been widely available, filling, and inexpensive: true peasant food. In the lean, early years of the Israeli state, for example, eggplant was one of the few vegetables widely available, much to the dismay of the recently arrived Ashkenazi Jews who had no idea how to prepare it.

Pickled eggplant is a specialty of the historic community of Jews in India, known as Bene Israel. This recipe has more of a Middle Eastern flavor than a South Asian one, but I love the idea that different communities of Jews have different takes on pickled eggplant. Two eggplants will give you three pints of pickled eggplant, which may be more than you want, so feel free to halve the recipe. On the other hand, this pickled eggplant is so tangy and mouth-watering, three pints can disappear in no time, especially if you offer some to guests. I like to put out these pickled egg- plant cubes as part of a lunch spread.

Makes 3 pints

2 medium eggplant, peeled and cubed

1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 cups apple cider vinegar 1 cup white wine vinegar

1 cup water 1 teaspoon sugar 6 cloves of garlic, sliced 3 dried chiles 12 mint leaves

Place the eggplant cubes in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Cover with a paper towel and weight down with a plate. Allow the eggplant to drain for 30 minutes.

Sterilize 3 pint jars by filling them with boiling water and allowing then to sit for 5 minutes. Pour the water out and allow the jars to air-dry naturally. Keep warm.

Meanwhile, bring the vinegars, water, and sugar to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the eggplant and simmer until softened, about 3 to 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the eggplant cubes to the jars. Add 2 cloves of sliced garlic, a dried chile, and 4 mint leaves to each jar.

Cover the eggplant cubes with brine, leaving 1⁄2 inch (1 cm) of head- space. Allow the jars to cool, cover them, and refrigerate. Allow the eggplant to cure for 2 to 3 days before serving. Pickled eggplant will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks. 

For this week’s Please Explain! we explore the creepy-crawly world of insects with journalist David MacNeal. His latest book Bugged: The Insects Who Rule the World and the People Obsessed with Them looks at the critical role insects play in nature and in our culture. We discuss how conservationists are protecting threatened species, and how bugs are used in science, medicine and even food.

If your desk is a total mess, today’s Please Explain is meant for YOU! We tackle the crucial, yet all-so-difficult task, of getting organized, with Amanda Sullivan, author of Organized Enough: The Anti-Perfectionist's Guide to Getting -- and Staying -- Organized.

Our latest Please Explain is all about the psychology and social evolution of cats with Thomas McNamee, author of The Inner Life of Cats: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions.

Do you have questions about your cat's behavior? Write to us on Twitter, Facebook or post in the comments section below!

Dr. William Reisacher, an Otolaryngic Allergist and Assistant Professor of Otorhinolaryngology and the Director of Allergy at Weill Cornell Medicine, will be here to answer your burning questions about bodily fluids – specifically those of the ear, nose and throat region. His clinical expertise lies in the diagnosis and management of airborne and food allergies in adults and children, but he can offer insight into mucus, salivary disorders and much, much more. 

Do you have questions about bodily fluids? Write to us on Twitter, Facebook or post in the comments section below!

Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld, Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, joins us for our latest Please Explain on ticks and Lyme disease. As global temperatures rise, there is an increasing prevalence of ticks, and tick-borne diseases, across the country. Dr. Ostfeld is part of The Tick Project, a five-year study to determine whether neighborhood-based prevention can reduce human cases of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. He will speak about the prevalence of ticks, why they are spreading and preventative measures we can take. 

For this week’s Please Explain, we are joined by meteorologist Ronald Holle to understand how lightning works. Holle has spent decades studying lightning in places like Colorado and Florida. He explores lighting strikes, how they impact different parts of the world and why the number of lightning-related fatalities in the U.S. has dropped dramatically over the last century. 

Eric Barker is the author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong. He joins us for our latest Please Explain on the Science of Success. In his book, he details the counterintuitive strategies that can lead to success, and he challenges conventional wisdom about how to achieve success.Got a question about becoming successful? Leave us a comment below!

For this week’s Please Explain, we’ll be talking about the mystery and magic of ocean tides with Jonathan White. He’s a marine conservationist, surfer and author of a new book called, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean. White explores how tides shape lives and communities, including stories of an Inuit tribe in the Arctic that watches the tides in order to find food, and how a group of French monks live in a monastery surrounded by tidal waters. He also looks at how tides will change with the effects of climate change and how communities are preparing for those changes. 

Note: Jonathan Capehart guest-hosted this segment of "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Harvard psychiatrist and brain imaging researcher Dr. Srini Pillay will join us for this week’s Please Explain on focus, creativity and productivity. His latest book is Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. In the book, he discusses his research on the helpful benefits of daydreaming, taking breaks, and even leaving work incomplete.

We end Food Fridays on a sweet note with a Please Explain all about honey and beekeeping! We’ll learn about the many different varieties and flavors of honey, and find out why raw honey - although twice as sweet as sugar - is filled with nutrients. We’ll also get recipes and tips for cooking with honey, and advice for aspiring beekeepers from Kim Flottum, veteran beekeeper, editor-in-chief of Bee Culture (the preeminent American beekeeping magazine) and author of The Backyard Beekeeper's Honey Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Harvesting, and Baking with Natural Honeys.He’ll be joined by Amelie Tremblay, a beekeeper from Tremblay Apiaries in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY.

Our latest Please Explain is all about the variety and enduring creativity of Spanish food, including Basque food. We'll be joined by Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero, New York City-based chefs and owners of El Quinto Pino, La Vara, Tekoá, and Txikito, which is New York's only Basque restaurant. They are also the authors of The Basque Book: A Love Letter in Recipes from the Kitchen of Txikito.

This episode of "The Leonard Lopate Show" is guest hosted by Deb Perelman. Perelman is a self-taught home cook, photographer and creator of SmittenKitchen.com. Her first book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, was a New York Times bestseller. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two children, and is currently at work on her second cookbook, which is due out this fall.

Our first Food Fridays Please Explain will be all about pies and pie making with Ron and Melissa Silver, co-owners of Bubby’s. Bubby's opened over 25 years ago as a wholesale pie business, but it has grown into a string of restaurants. They’ll share their secrets to the art of pie making, from the making the perfect filling to rolling out a flaky crust. Ron is also the author of Bubby's Homemade Pies. 

Bubby's Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie (Courtesy of Bubby's) 

Makes One 9-inch Double-crust Pie

It’s serendipitous and practical combination: Sour rhubarb heightens the flavors of the strawberries, while the berries add flavorful natural fruit sugars to the rhubarb.

Pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie,chilled, such as bubby’s All-butter pastry pie dough or basic butter and shortening pastry pie dough 3 cups strawberries, halved or thickly sliced3 cups (1 ½ pounds) rhubarb, cut into ½ to 1/3 - inch pieces1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on the top crust 4 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour1 teaspoon orange zest ⅛ teaspoon salt2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed

Roll out the pastry and line a 9-inch pie tin with the bottom crust. Roll out the remaining dough for the top crust. Rechill the pastry if necessary.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, flour, zest, and salt. Mix the ingredients briefly by tossing them as you would a salad. Scrape the fruit into the pastry- lined pie tin. Dot the fruit with the butter and cover it with the top crust. Trim and crimp the crust; chill the pie for 10 minutes in the freezer. Cut vent slits if not using a lattice and sprinkle the top crust lightly with sugar.

Bake the pie on a lipped baking sheet for 10 minutes, or until the crust looks dry, blistered, and blonde. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees F, and bake for at least 30 minutes more, or until the crust is golden brown and visible juices are thickened and bubbly slowly through the slits in the top crust.

Cool the pie completely before cutting it, at least a few hours. Serve it at room temperature. Store the pie uncovered at room temperature in a pie safe or cover the pie with a layer of cheesecloth (so that the pastry can breathe) up to 3 days.

The Leonard Lopate Show needs your help! We’re conducting an anonymous 5-minute survey to learn a bit about you and the podcasts you love. You can find it at wnyc.podcastingsurvey.com.  We would really appreciate your help - knowing more about you helps us put together more of the shows you enjoy.

Thank you from all of us at The Leonard Lopate Show!

Ever wonder how your tax dollars are spent? Or why the American tax code is filled with loopholes and special interest provisions that serve the interests of tax lawyers, accountants and huge corporations? T. R. Reid, a longtime correspondent for The Washington Post and bestselling author, joins us for this week’s Please Explain about the American tax code. His latest book is A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System.He’ll explain how our tax code works, how it differs from the rest of the world and how we can make it better.

For this week’s Please Explain, we discuss psychosomatic illnesses and the mind-body connection with Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan. O'Sullivan is a neurologist and author of the book, Is It All in Your Head?: True Stories of Imaginary Illness. In her book, O’Sullivan chronicles the world of psychosomatic illnesses and shows how it can take over people’s lives.

Our latest Please Explain is all about navigating the high seas and using water to help you find direction in your everyday life. We’ll hear from explorer and natural navigation expert Tristan Gooley, author of How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea.

Do you have a question, or a story, about navigating through open water? Leave us a comment!

‘Tis the season for sniffles. Millions of Americans suffer from allergies, seasonal and otherwise. For this week’s Please Explain, Dr. Clifford Bassett, the founder and medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York, joins us to explain what an allergy is (and isn’t), identify key triggers - from nuts to gluten to the nickel commonly used in cell phones - and offer both medical and nonmedical alternatives to treatment. Dr. Bassett’s book The New Allergy Solution: Supercharge Resistance, Slash Medication, Stop Suffering is out on March 21.

Dave Owen, Professor of Law at U.C. Hastings, joins us for this week's Please Explain to discuss the history of clean water legislation and what's at stake as the EPA attempts to roll back established water regulations. A recent executive order issued by President Trump instructed the EPA to review the "Waters of the United States" rule, an Obama-era clean water act that the president criticized for it's "horrible" treatment of small farmers and small businesses. Owen will discuss that 2015 water regulation, as well as the history and impact of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.

Have questions about clean water regulations? Leave us a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

This week's Please Explain is all about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)! We pull back the curtain on the institution that explores the mysteries of our universe. Dr. Valerie Neal, curator, chair of the Space History Department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and author of Spaceflight: A Smithsonian Guide and Where Next, Columbus? The Future of Space Exploration, joins us to talk about the inner-workings of NASA and to answer questions from listeners. 

Have questions about NASA? Leave us a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Science journalist Jennifer Kahn joins us for this week’s Please Explain, which is all about CRISPR, an incredible tool that makes precise gene editing cheaper and easier than ever before. Researchers have used CRISPR to genetically engineer malaria-resistant mosquitoes and manipulate the genes so that they copy-and-paste themselves, making it more likely that the new generation of mosquitoes will also be resistant. Kahn will discuss CRISPR, how it can be used in humans, the ethical questions it presents, gene drives and the recent CRISPR patent decision. 

Have questions about CRISPR and genetic engineering? Leave us a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Sharon Begley, the senior science writer for STAT, joins us for our latest Please Explain on compulsions to discuss her latest book Can’t Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions. She explores the spectrum of compulsions afflicting many people, from checking your smartphone frequently to the people who hoard and exhibit symptoms of OCD. Begley finds that the root of compulsion lies in the areas of the brain that triggers anxiety.

Have questions about compulsions? Leave us a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Why do we fall in love with one person and not another? Is there such a thing as love at first sight? Today’s Please Explain is all about love and attraction! Dr. Helen Fisher, author, biological anthropologist and chief scientific advisor to Match.com, joins us to discuss romance, dating, and marriage. We'll be taking calls from listeners with questions about love.

Have questions about dating and love? Leave us a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Helen Fisher will be talking about the anatomy of love, with Jenny Santi, on Tuesday, February 28th at Deepak HomeBase at 888 Broadway. The pre-reception begins at 6:30pm and the discussion begins at 7:00pm. For more information, click here.

Itching to do something that makes a real change, but not sure where to begin? This week's Please Explain with Ami Dar, founder and executive director of Idealist, and Alex Kouts, chief product officer at Countable, is all about social activism. We'll be answering your questions about ways to become politically active, whether that means simply educating yourself on bills, participating in town halls, or contacting your representatives. We'll also be discussing ways to find volunteer opportunities that match your interests, skills, and availability. 

Have questions about social activism and/or volunteering? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook, or leave us a message on Anchor.  

When is a shrug just a shrug? What are you really saying when you fold your arms across your chest? Whether we know it or not, we’re constantly conveying signals to other people through our body language and facial expressions. On this week’s Please Explain, we’re decoding body language and non-verbal communication, and looking at the psychology behind why we communicate this way with Dana Carney, Associate Professor at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. 

Have questions about body language? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! 

Jonathan Capehart guest hosts today!

This week’s Please Explain is all about the weird and wonderful human body with James Hamblin, author of If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Body. Hamblin, an M.D., is also a writer and senior editor for The Atlantic. He’ll answer all of our most pressing questions including, “If I lose a contact lens in my eye, can it get into my brain?” and “When I shave or cut my hair, does it grow back faster?”

Have questions (strange or otherwise) about the workings of the human body? Leave us a comment!

Our latest Please Explain is all about fat with Dr. Sylvia Tara, author of The Secret Life of Fat: The Science Behind the Body's Least Understood Organ and What It Means for You. Dr. Tara argues that fat, an endocrine organ that’s critical to our health, is one of the least understood parts of the body. She’ll explain how fat can use stem cells to regenerate; increase our appetite if it feels threatened; and use bacteria, genetics, and viruses to expand itself.

Have questions about fat? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! 

It's widely known that the modern celebration of Christmas has its origins in Pagan traditions. The Roman Saturnalia was celebrated by exchanging gifts and candles. But there's much more to the story than that. On this week’s Please Explain, we’re looking at the pagan origins of holiday traditions rooted in the celebration of the Winter Solstice. Linda Raedisch, author of The Old Magic of Christmas:Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year, discusses the history, folklore, traditions, botany and recipes of yuletide and explains why they linger in our modern holiday celebrations.

Have questions about Christmas traditions and the Winter Solstice? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! 

As many of us know from childhood goldfish experiences, there’s a lot that can go wrong when it comes to keeping fish fed, safe, healthy and stimulated. Imagine how much effort it takes to run a successful aquarium, where thousands of gallons of water housing everything from anemones to sharks and seals are at stake! On today's Please Explain, we're going behind the scenes at aquariums with two experts from the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk in Norwalk, CT: Publicist Dave Sigworth and John Lenzycki, their animal curator. 

Have questions about aquariums? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Why can’t we sleep? The CDC estimates that 50 to 70 million U.S. adults have a sleep or wakefulness disorder, caused by "broad scale societal factors such as round-the-clock access to technology and work schedules, but sleep disorders such as insomnia or obstructive sleep apnea also play an important role." 

Dr. Rafael Pelayo, Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, joins us for this week's Please Explain about insomnia and sleep disorders. 

Have questions about insomnia and sleep disorders? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! 

Julia Child once said, "With enough butter, anything is good." Wise words because after all, where would we be without butter, the building block of hundreds of recipes, from flaky croissants to rich buttercream frosting?

On this week’s Please Explain, we are talking all about butter, with award-winning writer and former pastry chef Elaine Khosrova, author of Butter: A Rich History. She traveled across the world to uncover the social and culinary history of butter, from Ireland to Tibet and everywhere in between. She also shares cooking tips and the best butter-centric recipes. 

Have questions about butter? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! 

Event: Elaine Khosrova will be doing a reading, Q&A and book signing on Saturday, December 3 at 4 p.m. at The Golden Notebook (29 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY). 

This week's Please Explain has us on the edge of our seats! From the Klismos, to the Eames, we're talking about the history of chairs and chair design with Witold Rybczynski, an architect, writer and an emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s the author of, Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History.

Have questions about chairs or chair design? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Where would music be without the electric guitar, the instrument that gave us everything from the quintessential rock n' roll sound of the 1960s, to hardcore punk, and face-melting metal? On this week's Please Explain, Brad Tolinski, former the editor-in-chief of Guitar World, and author of Play it Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound, and Revolution of the Electric Guitarintroduces us to the inventors and musicians who developed the instrument that defines so many genres. Also joining us is Roger Sadowsky, the owner of Sadowsky Guitars who’s made instruments for Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Paul Simon, Lou Reed and Joan Jett, among others. 

Event: Brad Tolinksi and musical guest, Lez Zeppelin, will celebrate Play It Loud at Rizzoli Bookstore (1133 Broadway, between 25th and 26th Street) on November 11th at 6 p.m. 

Have questions about electric guitars? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

 What are some of your favorite electric guitar songs? We've made a playlist, and we want your contributions! Send us your favorite songs, and we might add them to the playlist. Check out the playlist hereor below.

Ever wonder why Swiss cheese has holes? Why are so many types of cheese yellow in color? Or, what kinds of milk are best for making cheese? Chemist Michael Tunick has spent almost three decades working with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service creating new dairy products and improving existing ones. On our latest Please Explain, he’ll address the chemistry, physics and biology that results in cheese! He's the author of The Science of Cheese.

Have questions about cheese? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Tis the season for squash! Although most of us are only familiar with a handful of squashes, there are 150 varieties of heirloom pumpkins, squash, and gourds. For this week's Please Explain, Chef Alfred Portale, executive chef and co-owner of the Gotham Bar and Grill, shares his favorite ways to cook different kinds of squash. Zaid Kurdieh, a professor and partner operator of Norwich Meadows Farm, LLC, a certified organic, diversified vegetable farm in Norwich, NY, also joins us to discuss squash varieties and share growing tips. 

Recipes (Courtesy of Alfred Portale)

Butternut Squash Soup with Spiced Crème Fraîche        

Makes 6 servings

The porridge like consistency of this soup preserves all the distinguishing characteristics of butternut squash, to which hints of nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon are added for a soul-warming autumnal starter that’s as comforting and nurturing as an evening in front of a roaring fire.

To coax out as much flavor as possible, the squash is first cut into cubes that are heated slowly in butter until thoroughly caramelized and just beginning to break down around the edges. When shopping, look for a butternut squash with a long neck and pick it up to gauge its weight: if it feels heavy for its size, it will have a small seedbed, which means more usable flesh inside.

The crème fraîche behaves almost like a condiment here; swirl it in, or let it rest decoratively on top.

Thinking Ahead:

The soup and the crème fraîche can be made a day in advance; if you do this, do not enrich the soup with butter until reheating the next day.

SOUP:

¼ cup unsalted butter

4 pounds fresh butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced into 1-inch cubes

Coarse salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

2 shallots, peeled and sliced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

2 sprigs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

2 cups White Chicken Stock

In a 12-inch saute pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the squash and season it with salt and pepper. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until nicely caramelized but still firm.

When the squash is nearly cooked, heat 1 more tablespoon of butter in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring, until translucent. Add the garlic, thyme sprigs, and bay leaf, and stir for about a minute. Add the squash and chicken stock.

Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the squash is tender. Using a slotted spoon, remove and discard the thyme and bay leaf. Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor fitted with a metal blade, and purèe until smooth.

Return the soup to the pot to keep warm. Stir in the last 2 tablespoons of butter to enrich and thicken the soup. Ladle it into bowls and garnish each serving with a swirl of crème fraîche.

Variations: You can vary the squash, using buttercup or sugar pumpkin if you prefer their flavor.

SPICED CRÈME FRAICHE

1/3 cup crème fraiche

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Coarse salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

In a stainless-steel bowl, whisk together the crème fraîche, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 hour. Whisk again before serving.

Flavor Building: Stir in pieces of duck confit to add gamey punctuation, or top the soup with chopped, roasted chestnuts.

Squash- Avoid acorn squash in recipes that call for peeling and dicing; its deep ridges make this task almost impossible. Instead, use acorn squash for roasting, after which the pulp can be easily scooped out.

Butternut Squash Risotto, Maple-Smoked Bacon, and Sage    

Makes 6 appetizer or 4 main-course servings

When summer has long since turned to fall and the bitter cold of winter is just weeks away, I suggest preparing this dish to offer reassuring warmth to a small circle of friends and family. Based on a Venetian holiday recipe, this risotto boasts a rare and invigorating combination of ingredients both to welcome and combat the chill of the season. Part of the recipe’s impact derives from the spiced butter that finishes it with a powerful dose of garlic, chervil, marjoram, cinnamon, and ginger.

But there’s an equally important step that’s worth noting here: Many risotto recipes cook all the ingredients into the rice, but the success of this dish depends on not doing this, but adding the squash at the end to keep its flavor isolated and allow each bite to bring a different sensation to the palate. To achieve this effect, it’s absolutely essential that the delicate, caramelized squash cubes be stirred in as gently as possible just prior to serving. Not only does this preserve the integrity of the squash’s flavor, but the orange cubes will punctuate the risotto with dazzling bursts of color.

You might also break with the convention of serving risotto as either an appetizer or an entrée, and use this one as a side dish with roast pork (squash, cinnamon, and marjoram are commonly used to season pork) or simple roast chicken. Also, the bacon in this risotto will provide an understated continuity to the plate.

Thinking Ahead: The spiced butter may be prepared up to 8 hours in advance, covered, and refrigerated. The caramelized squash may be prepared as much as 1 hour in advance, covered, and held at room temperature.

SPICED BUTTER:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

4 tablespoons Roasted Garlic Puree

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh chervil

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh marjoram

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon   

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

Coarse salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients. Cover and set aside at room temperature.

CARMELIZED SQUASH:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large (2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into ¾-inch cubes

Coarse salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

In a large sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Season the squash with salt and pepper, add it to the pan, and cook, stirring occasionally, until nicely browned, about 6 minutes. Cover and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the brown sugar and cook until the squash is caramelized, but still holding its shape, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

RISOTTO ASSEMBLY:

About 2 quarts Double Turkey Stock

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 ounces slab bacon, preferably maple-smoked, cut into ½-inch dice

1 cup minced shallots or onions

1 pound Italian rice, preferably Vialone Nano, if available, or arborio

1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage

¼ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

½ cup dry white win

2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Coarse salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, bring the stock to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and keep hot on a very low flame.

In a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the shallots and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 3 minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Stir in the rice, sage, and thyme. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the rice is coated, has released its starch, turns a milky opaque white, and begins to stick to the bottom of the pan, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the wine and boil until completely reduced, 2 to 3 minutes. Ladle about 1 cup of the simmering stock into the rice. Cook, stirring often, until the stock is almost completely absorbed by the rice. Continue cooking and stirring, adding another cup of stock only when the previous addition has been absorbed. After 15 minutes, begin tasting the rice. At this point, add the remaining stock judiciously. The rice should be firm, yet cooked through in 18 to 20 minutes total cooking time.

Stir in the spiced butter and the parsley, and season with salt and pepper, then gently fold in the squash cubes, keeping them as intact as possible. Transfer the risotto to warmed bowls and serve immediately.

Variations: You may substitute another winter squash for the butternut. I recommend Hubbard, acorn, or buttercup. To expand your knowledge of the varieties of squash, try a different one each time you prepare this dish to determine which you like best and how each one plays in this context.

We're taking you behind the scenes at The Leonard Lopate Show on today's Please Explain with Executive Producer Melissa Eagan! She and Leonard will talk about the history of the show, share some of their favorite stories and look back at a few of our most memorable guests.

What have you always wanted to know about the show? Give us a call at 212-433-9692, send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Centuries before the restaurant became a dining destination, a "restaurant" was actually a medicinal broth that contained ingredients like capon, gold ducats, rubies and other precious gems. So how did restaurants become what they are today? When did eating become an enjoyable, leisurely activity?

Rebecca Spang, author of The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture, joins us for today’s Please Explain all about the history of restaurants! Dr. Spang is a Professor of History, Director of the Liberal Arts + Management Program and Director of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. 

Do you have questions about restaurant history? Give us a call at 212-433-9692, send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Reports of sinister clowns in the news have us thinking about creepiness. Why are some things simply scary, and other things genuinely creepy? On today's Please Explain, David Livingstone Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England, offers some insight in an essay for Aeoncalled, "A theory of creepiness." He tells us how scientists and researchers have attempted to measure and classify creepiness - from robots that are designed to look like humans (but something isn't quite right), to being put off by physical traits like "unkempt hair, bulging eyes, [and] abnormally long fingers."

David Livingstone Smith is the author of seven books, most recently, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others.

Is it worse to be stung by a scorpion or a bee? Ask Justin O. Schmidt, a biologist at Southwestern Biological Institute, who’s also affiliated with the Department of Entomology at the University of Arizona and the author of The Sting of the Wild. Dr. Schmidt has let more than 83 different species of stinging insects from all over the world attack him... all in the name of science!

Schmidt is the inventor of the eponymous “Schmidt Sting Pain Index,” which ranks the relative pain caused by insect stings on various parts of the body. On this week’s Please Explain, he’ll explain why insects sting in the first place, and what happens to them (and us) when they do it. 

Have questions about insect stings? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Dreams are a natural part of life, and throughout human history, people have tried to interpret their dreams. But dreaming, in many ways, still remains mysterious. On this week’s Please Explain, we’ll find out what happens in our brains while we dream, what causes nightmares and lucid dreaming, and why some of us talk and walk in our sleep. We’ll also learn about the many ways psychologists interpret dreams.

Joining us is Dr. Michael Breus, a Clinical Psychologist, Diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine and a Fellow of The American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He's the author of several books, most recently, The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype--and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More and Dr. Kelly Bulkeley, a dream researcher and Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, Senior Editor of the APA journal Dreaming and the author of Big Dreams: The Science of Dreaming and the Origins of Religion.

Have questions about dreaming? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Events: Kelly Bulkeley will be part of a panel at the New York Academy of Sciences on December 7th, talking about dreams and new research on the unconscious. He'll be giving a talk at the National Arts Club on January 30th about the film "Pan's Labyrinth" and lucid dreaming in Guillermo del Toro's childhood.

The best ballerinas make it look effortless, gracefully dancing and leaping across the stage in beautiful costumes. But what do ballet dancers really go through, given the physical demands, in addition to the hours of practice, preparation and dedication? On today's Please Explain, we're looking at the secret life of ballerinas with Ashley Bouder, principal dancer in the New York City Ballet, and Tiekka Tellier, who spent 16 years as a professional ballerina and founded Everyday Ballet. 

Have questions about ballet? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Event: The New York City Ballet Fall Gala opens NYCB’s 2016-17 season on Tuesday, September 20.  Ashley Bouder will give her first performance since giving birth to her daughter, Violet, on Friday, September 23 in Balanchine’s Vienna Waltzes. For ticket's and performance information, visit the NYCB website. 

Handwriting has helped shape culture ever since the ancient Sumerians created an alphabet on clay tablets. But are digital communication and the internet threatening to make handwriting obsolete? Anne Trubek , author of The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting,joins us for this week's Please Explain all about handwriting!

Do you have questions about handwriting? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook! 

Today's Please Explain: handwriting! We want to see yours. Some pangrams from our show staff to get you started pic.twitter.com/OdFWs6L3la

Hey .@LeonardLopate ! Here's my very best attempt at neat penmanship. I think I'll stick to typing... pic.twitter.com/ld3ZRa85kG

@LeonardLopate My scrawl. The young new postal worker has a hard time reading it. Would like me to print. Defiance. pic.twitter.com/zfdk84AUxh

@LeonardLopate @WNYC i don't hold a pen the "right" way but teachers let it slide bc i have neat handwriting pic.twitter.com/hot5dFS8C2

@LeonardLopate Can't decide between upper & lower case haha pic.twitter.com/NqX4bCOvYN

The summer is not over yet, and to prove it, we’re talking all about ice cream! We’ll look into the history of the beloved frozen treat, as well as the many variations on flavor, sweetness and texture that have developed over the years. We’ll also find out how to make ice cream (with and without dairy) and the science behind the perfect scoop from Laura O’Neill, Co-Founder Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, based in Greenpoint, and Ben Van Leeuwen, Co-Founder. They’re the co-authors of the Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream cookbook. 

Do you have questions about ice cream? Write in the comments section below, write to us on Twitter or Facebook, or call us at 212-433-9692. 

Recipes

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

(Reprinted with permission from Van Leeuwen's Artisan Ice Cream, published by Ecco Books, 2015.) 

Believe it or not, even people who say they don’t like bananas love this ice cream—it tastes just like banana bread pudding. We roast the bananas with dark brown sugar and butter until they are golden and caramelized, and then we fold them into our ice cream base. The ice cream that comes out is elegant and luscious, rich with caramelized bananas, and is one of our favorite winter flavors to make. The roasting of the bananas gives the ice cream such a creamy, almost burnt-caramel flavor; we can’t think of a better way to round out a Christmas dinner.

MAKES ABOUT 1 QUART

SPECIAL EQUIPMENTImmersion blender

FOR THE ROASTED BANANAS4 medium bananas, preferably somewhat speckled but not brown, peeled and cut into1/4 inch thick slices2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter2 tablespoons (14 grams) dark brown sugarPinch of kosher salt

FOR THE ICE CREAM BASE2 cups heavy cream1/2 cup whole milk3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) kosher salt6 large egg yolks

1. To make the roasted bananas, preheat the oven to 400˚F; position the rack in the middle. Line a shallow baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, toss the bananas, butter, sugar, and salt. Spread the ingredients on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until caramelized. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

3. To make the roasted banana ice cream, pour the cream and milk into a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water). Whisk in 1⁄2 cup (100 grams) of the sugar and the salt and stir until they have dissolved. Warm the mixture until you see steam rising from the top.

4. Meanwhile, prepare an ice bath in a large bowl and set another bowl over it. Set aside.

5. In a medium bowl, with a kitchen towel underneath it to prevent slipping, whisk together the egg yolks with the remaining 1⁄4 cup (50 grams) sugar until uniform. While whisking, add a splash of the hot dairy mixture to the yolks. Continue to add the dairy mixture, whisking it in bit by bit, until you’ve added about half. Add the yolk mixture to the remaining dairy mixture in the double boiler. Set the heat under the double boiler to medium and cook the custard, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon and reducing the heat to medium-low as necessary, until steam begins to rise from the surface and the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. Hold the spoon horizontally and run your finger through the custard. If the trail left by your finger stays separated, the custard is ready to be cooled.

6. Strain the custard into the bowl sitting over the prepared ice bath and stir for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the custard has cooled. Transfer the custard to a quart-size container and add the roasted bananas. Using an immersion blender, buzz the custard until emulsified. Cover the custard and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or, preferably, overnight.

From white sugar and brown sugar, to raw sugar and sugar cane… Not to mention agave, simple syrup, and molasses, there's an abundance of options when it comes to choosing an agent that’s going to make your desserts and drinks pop. But which are the best for what purpose… and which are the healthiest? 

Joining us to talk about all things sweet is Shauna Sever, author of three cookbooks, includingReal Sweet:More Than 80 Crave-Worthy Treats Made with Natural Sugars.We'll also find out how sugar and sweeteners affect our health with Rebecca Blake, a nutritionist, registered dietitian, and Administrative Director for Medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. 

From the cavernous Chinatown restaurants where carts of dumplings are wheeled around, waiting to be pointed to and picked up like an eager single teenager at the prom, to foie gras, flank steak and braised duck chins, dim sum is a changing force in Chinese cuisine in this country. Dim sum takes years to master, seconds to eat, and contains within its tapioca wrapper the history of waves of Cantonese immigration.

Ed Schoenfeld, restaurateur, Chinese food aficionado and owner-operator of Red Farm, a Zagat top rated Chinese restaurant in New York, and a New York Times critics-pick.

Now that you're equipped with a variety of new egg recipes, today's Please Explain will answer all of your egg-buying questions! Omega-3, Free Range, Cage Free, Organic… What do these labels mean? Why do eggs come in different colors? Why don’t you have to put farmers market eggs in the fridge? 

Here to answer all these questions and more is Cathy Erway, Serious Eats contributor and author of The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove. She also blogs at Not Eating Out In New York and has a podcast called Eat Your Words on Heritage Radio. She wrote this article about egg labeling.

We'll also be joined by Mary Carpenter, owner and operator of Violet Hill Farm in West Winfield, NY. She keeps poultry and supplies a wide variety of eggs to the Union Square and McCaren Park greenmarkets. Matt Kaplan, who works at the Violet Hill greenmarket stalls, will stop by our studio and bring some eggs for show and tell!

This week’s Please Explain is all about trails - from the ancient nomadic paths that travelers relied on for survival, to modern hiking trails that help us find our way in the wilderness. Robert Moor began writing his book, On Trails: An Exploration,while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2009. He’ll talk about animal trails (ants, buffaloes, elephants), long-lost Cherokee trails, and discuss the colonial origins of American hiking trails.  

With many people still trying to come to terms with the news from Orlando, Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, and Dallas, the conversations around gun control, racial profiling, and police tactics, are front and center. But one element missing from these conversations is concrete data, largely because the federal government does not collect it.

For this week’s Please Explain, we are going to discuss the data behind the high profile shootings in the news: how it’s being collected, and what it reveals. Jamiles Lartey, reporter for Guardian US will talk about their project, The Counted, which is tracking the number of people killed by law enforcement in 2015 and 2016. Ben Casselman, Senior Editor and Chief Economics Writer at 538, will discuss his site’s series “Gun Deaths in America” which goes far broader and analyzes all gun deaths in the U.S.

Sometimes it's impossible to avoid an argument. That's why on today's Please Explain, we're learning how to make a convincing case with Stanley Fish, law professor and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His latest book, Winning Arguments: What Works and Doesn't Work in Politics, the Bedroom, the Courtroom, and the Classroom, is a guide to using wit, observation, logic and rhetoric to win the toughest arguments, whether at the workplace or at home. 

 Need to win an argument? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Dolphins have long been regarded for their remarkable intelligence and social skills. When the dolphin genome was first sequenced in 2011, scientists learned that the beloved aquatic mammals are even more like us than we previously thought.

This week's Please Explain is all about dolphins, their remarkable intelligence and their relationship to humans, with journalist Susan Casey, author of Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins.She embarked on a two-year global adventure to explore the nature of dolphins. 

Have questions about dolphins? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

We’re untangling the science and cultural history of hair on this week’s Please Explain with a leading expert on the fascinating fiber, Kurt Stenn, the author of Hair: A Human History. He served for over 20 years as a Professor of Pathology and Dermatology at the Yale University School of Medicine, in addition to working as the Director of Skin Biology at Johnson & Johnson where he helped found a biotech startup on hair follicle regeneration. He’ll talk about the evolutionary history of hair, in addition to its role in art, fashion, cultural identity and even the economy. 

Do you have questions about hair? Ask us in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

After the shooting in Orlando, and mass shootings in the past, there is intense focus on mental illness, and questions of whether mental illness can be linked to mass shootings. On this week's Please Explain, David Kessler, former FDA Commissioner of 20 years, will discuss mental illness and emotional anxiety, and explain how certain stimuli can capture our attention, and even control our actions. Dr. Kessler’s latest book is “Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering.” He'll reveal how the psychological phenomenon of "capture" influences addiction, abuse, and can even lead to violence, like mass shootings.

For the past 2000 years, paper has been the essential object that fuels education, art, commerce, dissemination of ideas… and the list goes on and on. In his new book, Paper: Paging Through History, the bestselling author of Cod and Salt, Mark Kurlansky writes, “Studying the history of paper exposes a number of historical misconceptions, the most important of which is this technological fallacy: the idea that technology changes society. It is exactly the reverse. Society develops technology to address the changes that are taking place within it.”  He joins us to talk about the history of paper on today's Please Explain. We'll also be joined by paper-maker Donna Koretsky, co-founder and owner of Carriage House Paper in Brooklyn, as well as co-curator of the International Paper Museum in Boston.

Have questions about paper? Give us a call at 646-829-3985!

New research reveals that some birds rival primates in terms of intelligence, according to science writer Jennifer Ackerman. She joins us for today's Please Explain, which is all about birds and their remarkable intelligence! Her new book The Genius of Birds uncovers little-known facts about the powerful bird brain. She traveled the globe for her research -- from laboratories in Barbados and New Caledonia, to the mountains of central Virginia.

Do you have questions about birds? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Events:  Jennifer Ackerman will be participating in this year’s World Science Festival from June 1 through 5. She'll be speaking at the Science Story and Café at the NYU Kimmel Center  on June 4th from 12:30 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. She'll also speak at Science and Story on June 4 from 8:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. at the NYU Kimmel Center, Eisner & Lubin Auditorium. 

Spring is finally here, and we're kicking off the growing season with a Please Explain that’s all about urban agriculture and city gardens! Find out the best ways to maximize your green space - whether it’s a window box, rooftop plot or a community garden. We’ll also look at the city’s growing rooftop-farm movement, discuss public garden spaces and find out why rooftop gardens are an ecological necessity in our urban landscape.

Joining us is Annie Novak, co-founder and head farmer of the nation’s first commercial green roof row farm, Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn. She’s also the manager of the Edible Academy at New York Botanical Garden, founder and director of Growing Chefs and author of The Rooftop Growing Guide.We’ll also be joined by Gerard Lordahl, Director of Open Space Greening Program at GrowNYC, a non-profit which operates local environmental programs, including the city Greenmarkets. 

Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

The English language is spoken by millions of people around the world, and despite that fact, it remains relatively fluid. Because it’s so adaptable, who knows what the future will hold in store for English? On today's Please Explain, we’ll attempt to find out with Simon Horobin, Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. He's the author of How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language. We’ll also learn how modern English developed and became standardized, in addition to how it has evolved through the centuries and in different global communities.

Do you have questions about the history and future of English? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Has technology destroyed our ability to have meaningful face-to-face conversations? What happens when we look up from our phones and try to communicate? On today's Please Explain, media scholar and MIT professor Sherry Turkle reveals how our relationship with technology has harmed our ability to empathize. She's also the author of the bestselling book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age. 

Do you have questions about technology and modern conversation? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Charter schools have been growing in popularity over the past few years in communities across the country, most notably in New York and Washington, D.C. Advocates say they're the solution to failing inner city schools, while critics argue they're corporatizing public education. We have a lot of questions about charter schools, and on today's Please Explain we'll talk find out how they began, how they're funded, as well as some of successes and failures of the system. 

Dr. Michael Fabricant, a professor at the Hunter College School of Social Work and executive officer of the Ph.D. Program in Social Welfare, and Dr. Michelle Fine, a Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology, Women's Studies, and Urban Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY, will join us to talk about charter schools. They’re the authors of Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education: What's at Stake?  

President Obama said last month that our Supreme Court, "is supposed to be above politics, not an extension of politics. And it should stay that way.”  But has the Court ever been non-partisan in practice? Is it even possible for nine justices to stay out of politics? In light of the contention over Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination, we're looking at the politics of the Supreme Court on today's Please Explain. 

Jeffrey Toobin, staff writer at The New Yorker, senior legal analyst at CNN and author of the forthcoming book American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst,joins us to shed some light on the inner-workings of the Supreme Court. Nina Totenberg, NPR's award-winning legal affairs correspondent, also joins the conversation. 

What is folk music? Spanning genres, geographical locations, and eras in time, it’s the music of the people. Although American folk music has been around for a long time, you could say it had its biggest explosion in the 1960s in Greenwich Village. In fact, New York has experienced a bit of a folk revival in recent years.

On today's Please Explain, we're exploring folk music with Eli Smith, the co-founder of the Brooklyn Folk Festival, the banjo player for The Downhill Strugglers and the former co-host of The Down Home Radio Show. Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, a multi-instrumentalist performing at this year's Brooklyn Folk Festival, joins Eli in the conversation. They'll also perform live in our studio! 

Event: The Brooklyn Folk Festival will be held at St. Anne’s Church (157 Montague Street between Clinton and Henry) from April 8th-10th. It will feature 35 bands, workshops and events including an old time string band, freedom songs of the Civil Rights Movement, shape note, country blues and international folk music from Syria and Colombia. 

There's a whole world of magical creatures out there, and on today's Please Explain we're unraveling the truth behind cryptozoology, which may or may not be a pseudoscience. Loren Coleman, one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, an honorary member of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club and director of the International Cryptology Museum, joins us to discuss creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Joe Gisondi, a professor of journalism at Eastern Illinois University and the author of Monster Trek: The Obsessive Search for Bigfoot,also weighs in on the discussion. 

Do you have questions about Bigfoot, unicorns, centaurs or other magical creatures? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

The presidential primaries are in full swing, and that leaves us with a lot of questions about the intricate rules, politics and process of choosing our next president. What’s the difference between a primary and a caucus? Delegates and superdelegates? Why do political parties even have conventions? For these answers and more, we turn to Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of The Slate Group, host of the “Trumpcast” podcast on Slate.com and author of The Bush Tragedy. 

Do you have questions about our presidential primary process? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Event: Slate's Culture Gabfest LIVE will be held on April 6th at 7:30 p.m. at the SVA Theater at 333 West 23rd Street. For tickets and event information, visit the event page. 

What's the difference between a primary and a caucus? One of them do not have a secret ballot https://t.co/CqYEvuM9Lo

The delegate structure was meant to prevent someone like #BernieSanders from getting the nom & losing general election, says @jacobwe

Delegates are bound for the first ballot, and we haven't had a convention that goes beyond first ballot since 1960s https://t.co/EbeBsy8G9v

Political parties are private and "they can do whatever they want" to choose the nominees, says @jacobwe https://t.co/fBeyXr978g

If a candidate drops out, delegates become uncommitted. That's why candidates "suspend" their campaign https://t.co/zFKLDCnYly

If you thought that dinosaurs were extinct, think again. According to a new exhibit at The American Museum of Natural History, birds are a form of living dinosaur! The myriad evolutionary connections between birds and dinosaurs are apparently found in bird bone structure, flight mechanisms, feathers and nesting patterns. We now know more than ever about these common traits thanks to new technologies like CT scanners, synchrotrons and advanced computer modeling that paleontologists have used to examine fossils, bones, and other ancient remnants.

On this week’s Please Explain, we’ll dive into these connections with Dr. Mark Norell, the chair of the American Museum of Natural History's Division of Paleontology. 

Event: Dr. Norell's exhibit “Dinosaurs Among Us,” at the American Museum of Natural History opens March 21st and will run until January 2nd, 2017. The exhibit will open exclusively to AMNH members March 18th through March 20th. For tickets and more information, click here. 

Want to hear more from Dr. Mark Norell? Check out our interview with him in 1994.

Think dinosaurs are extinct? Think again. https://t.co/48fb3Vtk8I pic.twitter.com/Mvxf2wuJmm

"It's even hard today to say what a bird is," says Dr. Mark Norell, the chair of the @AMNH Division of Paleontology. https://t.co/BpOcrlHalh

Flamingos were alive during the same time as T-Rex. Guess which one survived the asteroid? https://t.co/m767oQ4SQP

#TIL Crocodiles can communicate while still inside the egg. https://t.co/6g8uyeNYhP

"The more you find in the fossil record, the crazier it gets" says @AMNH's Dr. Mark Norell https://t.co/UhIJyLAvls pic.twitter.com/uZ0SwZ53NE

Mark Zuckerberg, the 31-year-old co-founder, chairman and CEO of Facebook, recently announced that he and his wife plan to donate 99% of their wealth - approximately $45 billion - to charity. On today's Please Explain, Michael Hobbes, a freelance writer who also works for a human rights NGO, talks about how philanthropy is changing, from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations, to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg's altruism. 

Do you have questions about philanthropy? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Tax season is here which means that it’s the best time of the year for phone scams, financial fraud and identity theft. On this week’s Please Explain, identity theft expert Steven Weisman tells us all about the most common scams and how to avoid them. He’ll also offer ways to protect yourself against identity theft. He’s the author of several books on the topic, including Identity Theft Alert, and writes the “Scamacide”blog. He’s joined by Beth Finkel, the NY State Director of AARP, who offers ways to help seniors avoid targeted scams. 

The AARP is hosting Shred Fest eventsfrom April 26 through May 1. For more information, check out their website, which will be updated as the event grows near, for more details.

Do you have questions about phone scams or identity theft? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Kurt Vonnegut once gave this piece of creative writing advice: "First rule: Do not use semicolons... All they do is show you've been to college.”  

There's no question that punctuation elicits strong feelings. On today's Please Explain, linguist David Crystal teaches us how to correctly use punctuation, and gives us a history of why we punctuate the way we do. His latest book, Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation, completes his trilogy of books on the English language.

Do you have questions about punctuation? Write to us in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

While some may cringe at the thought of eating brains, sweetbreads, also known as offal, are celebrated in many cuisines around the world. On today's Please Explain food writer Robert Sietsema and butcher Brent Young of The Meat Hook, tell you all you'll ever need to know about buying, preparing and eating offal. They'll also share the best local restaurants offering exciting offal options.

Do you have questions about offal? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Check out recipes from Chef Chris Consentino of Offal Good!

Marinated Tripe, New Potatoes & ParsleyExtracted from Beginnings: My Way To Start a Meal by Chris Cosentino

-1 1/3 cups each coarsely chopped carrot, celery, and onion-2 heads garlic, split, plus 5 cloves, minced-1 bunch fresh thyme-2 bay leaves-1 tbsp fennel seeds-Kosher salt-2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise-1/2 cup dry white wine-Juice of 1 lemon-4 tbsp Champagne vinegar-2 lb honeycomb beef tripe, preferably organic and unbleached-10 fingerling potatoes-1 tbsp red pepper flakes-Finely grated zest and juice of 3 Bearss limes or Eureka lemons-1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling-3 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

In a large stockpot, combine 8 cups water, the carrot, celery, onion, split garlic heads, thyme, bay, fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon salt, the vanilla, wine, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon of the vinegar. Rinse the tripe well under cold running water until the water runs clear and the tripe is free of grit. Add the tripe to the pot, place over medium-high heat, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat so that the liquid just simmers and cook uncovered, skimming any scum that rises to the surface, until the tripe is very tender, about 3 hours. Remove from the heat, let the tripe cool completely in the cooking liquid, and refrigerate the tripe in the liquid overnight.

Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with salted water to cover, bring to a simmer, and cook until just tender when pierced with a knife, 10-15 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold running water to cool completely, and then cut crosswise into slices 1/4 inch thick. Place in a bowl. Remove the tripe from the cooking liquid and discard the liquid. Using a very sharp knife, shave the tripe into thin, ribbonlike strips. Transfer to a bowl. In a small bowl, combine the minced garlic, pepper flakes, lime zest and juice, and remaining 3 tablespoons vinegar and let stand for 5 minutes. Slowly whisk in the olive oil and season with salt. Add just enough of the vinaigrette to the tripe to coat lightly and then toss to mix. Taste and add more vinaigrette to your liking. Add the remaining vinaigrette to the potatoes and toss gently to coat evenly. Add the potatoes to the tripe and toss together.

Transfer the tripe and potatoes to a platter and garnish with parsley and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve right away.

Serves 6

Tuscan-Style Chicken Livers

Extracted from Beginnings: My Way To Start a Meal by Chris Cosentino

-1 1/2 lb chicken livers, trimmed of any sinew or green or brown patches-3 shallots, sliced-1/4 cup vin santo-2 tsp fresh thyme leaves-1 fresh bay leaf-Finely grated zest of 1 orange-Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper-Small pinch of licorice powder-4 tbsp rendered duck fat, plus more melted duck fat for sealing-3 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter-24 baguette slices

In a shallow bowl, combine the chicken livers, shallots, vin santo, thyme, bay, orange zest, 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and the licorice powder and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours.

Remove and discard the bay leaf from the chicken livers. In a large sauté pan over high heat, warm the duck fat. When it is hot, working in batches so as not to crowd the pan, use a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken livers and shallots to the pan. Cook, turning as needed, until the livers are well colored on the outside and pink at the center, about 4 minutes. As each batch is ready, transfer it to a food processor. Pour the remaining marinade into the pan, stir up the browned bits, and add the contents of the pan to the food processor.

Process the liver mixture until smooth. With the motor running, slowly add the butter until the mixture is emulsified. Pass the mixture through a tamis (drum sieve) into a bowl. Pack the mixture into one or more ramekins and top with a thing layer of duck fat to seal. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or up to 4 days.

Just before serving, preheat a stove-top grill pan over medium-high heat. Place the baguette slices on the grill rack and grill, turning once, until etched with grill marks and crisp on both sides, about 2 minutes on each side.

To serve, set out the ramekin, the baguette slices, and a spoon.

Serves 6

Processed foods tend to have long lists of ingredients that add flavor, color and texture, along with preservatives to extend shelf life. On today's Please Explain, we'll take a close look at the most common food additives, from xanthan gum to MSG. Photographer Dwight Eschliman and author Steve Ettlinger created a detailed visual guide in Ingredients: A Visual Exploration of 75 Additives and 25 Food Products, and they'll help take the mystery out of the ingredients list. Charles Mueller, clinical associate professor of nutrition at NYU Steinhardt, will discuss the health effects of the common additives. 

Do you have questions about food additives? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Over the past few years, tacos have risen from humble street food (and Americanized fast food) to trendy options at a growing number of restaurants. A staple of Mexican cuisine, they’ve been adopted by different cultures and are even showing up on brunch and dessert menus. On this week’s Please Explain, Chef Alex Stupak, owner of the Empellón restaurant group, and food writer Jordana Rothman, will tell us how to make fresh tortillas, salsas, moles, as well as traditional and modern fillings. They'll also share tips and recipes from their book Tacos: Recipes and Provocations.  

Do you have questions about tacos? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Recipe: Tacos al Pastor (From Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak & Jordana Rothman)

Short of investing in a vertical broiler, this hack is the closest you’ll get to al pastor tacos at home. We tend to think of pork shoulder as something that needs to be braised, but a well-butchered shoulder steak given a swift ride on a ripping hot grill can be a thing of beauty—the wide surface area means more of that good Maillard char you want from al pastor. Take your time when slicing the finished meat: thin, bias-cut slivers are the ideal texture here.

MAKES 12 TACOS

ADVANCE PREPARATION

1 cup Adobo (see below)

Salsa Roja (see below), for serving

Raw Salsa Verde (see below), for serving

FOR THE FILLING

Vegetable oil, for the grill

Four 1⁄2-inch-thick boneless pork shoulder steaks (2 pounds total)

Kosher salt, as needed

TO ASSEMBLE THE TACOS

1⁄4 ripe pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into 24 even slices

1⁄2 medium white onion, minced

60 cilantro leaves (from about 15 sprigs), roughly chopped

2 limes, each cut into 6 wedges

1 recipe Corn or Flour Tortillas

MAKE THE FILLING:

Preheat a grill to the hottest possible setting and brush with vegetable oil. Slather about 1 cup of the Adobo all over the pork steaks and season liberally with salt.

Place the pork steaks on the hot grill and cook for 3 minutes. Rotate 45 degrees and cook for another 3 minutes. Flip and continue to cook for 3 minutes. The finished steaks should have visible charred grill marks. Remove from the grill, transfer to a plate, and set aside to rest in a warm place.

Make one batch of tortillas and hold them warm.

Cut the pork steaks against the grain and on the bias—you want the slices to be as thin as possible, almost shaved, to achieve the right tenderness and texture for al pastor.

ASSEMBLE THE TACOS:

Lay out the warm tortillas on serving plates. Evenly distribute the grilled pork and the pineapple slices among the tortillas. Top with some of the Salsa Roja and Raw Salsa Verde, along with the minced onion

and chopped cilantro. Squeeze a couple of the lime wedges over the tacos and serve the rest on the side.

ADOBO

Masa may be the bedrock of Mexican cuisine, but adobo is what makes it sing. The dried chile paste is a component in countless dishes, slathered on robust meats like the pork for Al Pastor Tacos and the lamb for the Lamb Barbacoa Tacos. The dried chile and aromatic spice flavors in this paste are versatile, so adobo is a useful thing to have around to add instant depth—try thinning it with oil and using it to dress a hearty vegetable, like asparagus. Adobo will last 1 week in the refrigerator, and 1 month in an airtight container in the freezer.

MAKES ABOUT 2 1⁄3 CUPS

8 ancho chiles

8 guajillo chiles

1 chipotle morita chile

3 whole cloves

1⁄4 teaspoon cumin seeds

One 2-inch stick of canela (Mexican cinnamon)

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano

20 garlic cloves, skins on

1 cup cider vinegar

Remove the stems from the chiles and tear the chiles open. Shake out and discard the seeds. Tear the chiles into small pieces.

Set a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the cloves, cumin seeds, canela, black peppercorns, and oregano; toast, shaking the pan, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Remove the spices from the heat, transfer to a spice grinder, and grind to a fine powder.

Reheat the skillet over medium heat. Toast the ancho, guajillo, and chipotle morita chiles, turning from time to time until you see the first wisp of smoke, about 30 seconds. Transfer the chiles to a bowl, cover with hot tap water, and place a heavy plate over the chiles to keep them submerged. Set aside to soak for 30 minutes.

Add the garlic cloves to the skillet and roast, turning them from time to time, until softened slightly and blackened in spots, about 6 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the garlic from the skillet, and set aside to cool at room temperature. Once the cloves are cool enough to handle, peel them and discard the skins.

Drain the chiles and place in a blender along with the ground spices, roasted garlic, and vinegar, and puree to a paste. You may need to add a bit of water to the blender to help the chiles pass easily through the blades. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until ready to use.

SALSA ROJA

Salsa roja and salsa verde are the ebony and ivory of the salsa universe: Whereas verde supplies brightness and clean, sharp heat, roja offers gentle spice and dried-herb warmth. It makes sense that the two keep such close company—you’ll encounter versions of both at nearly every taqueria in Mexico.

For my salsa roja, I looked to guajillo chile, one of the workhorses of the Mexican pantry. Cheap and ubiquitous, these dried peppers impart the mild heat, distinctive berry-like aroma, and deep, rusty hue that define a good roja.

MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS

2 plum tomatoes

10 guajillo chiles

1 chipotle morita chile

1⁄2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano

1⁄8 teaspoon cumin seeds

5 garlic cloves, skins on

1 1⁄2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Preheat the broiler. Roast the tomatoes on a baking sheet under the broiler until blackened in spots, about 7 minutes. Turn them over and continue to blacken, about another 7 minutes. Remove from the broiler and set aside to cool at room temperature. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel the tomatoes and discard the skins.

Remove the stems from the guajillo and chipotle chiles and tear them open. Shake out and discard the seeds. Remove and discard the veins.

Set a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the oregano and cumin seeds and toast briefly, shaking the pan, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Remove from the heat, transfer to a spice grinder, and grind to a fine powder.

Reheat the skillet over medium heat. Toast the guajillo and chipotle chiles, turning them from time to time until you see the first wisp of smoke, about 45 seconds.

Remove pan from heat, and transfer the chiles to a bowl. Cover them with hot tap water and place a heavy plate over the chiles to keep them submerged. Set aside to soak for 30 minutes.

Add the garlic cloves to the skillet and roast, turning them from time to time until softened slightly and blackened in spots, about 6 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the garlic from the skillet, and set aside to cool at room temperature. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel the garlic cloves and discard the skins.

Drain the soaked chiles and discard the liquid. Place them in a blender along with the ground spices and roasted garlic, the salt, sugar, cider vinegar, and ¼ cup water. Puree on high speed until completely smooth, working in batches if necessary. Set up a medium-mesh sieve over a bowl and pass the puree through the strainer. Transfer to a container or refrigerate until ready to use. The salsa will keep for up to 3 days.

RAW SALSA VERDE

Raw ingredients speak (shout, actually) for themselves in this purist salsa verde. It’s all about the green apple acidity of ripe tomatillo, the heat of untreated chiles, and the garlicky sting right up front.

MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP

1 garlic clove, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 serrano chiles, stemmed and roughly chopped

1⁄2 medium white onion, minced 3–4 medium tomatillos (about 5 ounces total), husked, rinsed, patted dry, and diced

1 teaspoon honey

40 cilantro leaves (from about 10 sprigs), roughly chopped

EQUIPMENT: Molcajete*

Place the garlic in the molcajete with the salt and crush to a paste using the tejolote.

Add the chiles and minced onion to the paste and crush to a coarse texture. Add the tomatillos and continue crushing with the tejolote until pulpy. Season with the honey and stir with a spoon. Add the chopped cilantro and stir to combine. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until ready to use. The finished salsa is best eaten the day it is made; if you want to work ahead, don’t add the cilantro to the salsa until the day you plan to serve it.

*If you don’t have a molcajete, prep all the ingredients as instructed and add them, minus the cilantro, at once to the jar of a blender. Pulse to combine then stir in the chopped cilantro.

“Recipe reprinted from TACOS: RECIPES AND PROVOCATIONS by Alex Stupak and Jordana Rothman. Copyright ©2015 by Empellon Holdings LLC. Photos by Evan Sung. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.”

The depths of winter make this the peak of sauce season. Whether you love the classic comfort of tomato sauce or a rich, fragrant curry, on today's Please Explain we're sharing the secrets of sauce and answering your questions!

Chef James Peterson, author of the award-winning book Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, will take us through all the sauces, from traditional French hollandaise and béchamel, to Italian Osso Buco and North African Harissa sauce.  

Do you have questions about sauces and sauce-making? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Cast iron cookware has been around for centuries, but many modern cooks are intimidated by it. How do you clean it? What can (and can't) you cook in it? Should you season it? 

In this week's Please Explain, Julia Collin Davison, the executive food editor at America’s Test Kitchen and author of the forthcoming bookCook it in Cast Iron: Kitchen-Tested Recipes for the One Pan That Does It All (Cook's Country), and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Managing Culinary Director of Serious Eats and author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, answer all your burning cast iron questions and dispel the many myths surrounding the classic cookware.

Do you have questions about cast iron cookware? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Recipe: Classic Roast Chicken with Lemon-Thyme Pan Sauce from Cook It in Cast Iron from America’s Test Kitchen

Serves 4

Why This Recipe Works: Roast chicken is often described as a simple dish, but the actual process–brining or salting, trussing, and turning–is anything but easy. We wanted a truly simple way to get roast chicken on the table in just an hour without sacrificing flavor. We quickly realized that trussing was unnecessary; we could simply tie the legs together and tuck the wings underneath the bird. We also found we could skip flipping the chicken during cooking by taking advantage of the great heat retention of cast iron. We cooked the chicken breast side up in a preheated skillet to give the thighs a head start and allow the skin to crisp up. Starting in a 450-degree oven and then turning the oven off while the chicken finished cooking slowed the evaporation of juices, ensuring moist, tender meat, even without brining or salting. A traditional pan sauce pairing lemon and thyme was the perfect complement, and it took just minutes to make while the chicken rested. Pan drippings contributed meatiness, and finishing the sauce with butter gave it the perfect velvety texture. We prefer to use a 3 1/2- to 4-pound chicken for this recipe. If roasting a larger bird, increase the time when the oven is on in step 2 to 30 to 40 minutes.

1 (3 1/2- to 4-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded

1          tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

            Salt and pepper

1          lemon, quartered

1          shallot, minced

1          cup chicken broth

2          teaspoons Dijon mustard

2          tablespoons unsalted butter

1 1/2  teaspoons minced fresh thyme

 1. Adjust oven rack to middle position, place 12-inch cast-iron skillet on rack, and heat oven to 450 degrees. Meanwhile, pat chicken dry with paper towels, rub with oil, and season with salt and pepper. Tie legs together with kitchen twine and tuck wingtips behind back.

2. When oven reaches 450 degrees, place chicken breast side up in hot skillet. Roast chicken until breast registers 120 degrees and thighs register 135 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes.

3. Arrange lemon quarters cut side down around chicken. Turn off oven and leave chicken in oven until breast registers 160 degrees and thighs register 175 degrees, 15 to 20 minutes.

4. Using potholders, remove skillet from oven. Transfer chicken to carving board, tent loosely with aluminum foil, and let rest for 15 minutes. Let roasted lemon cool slightly, then squeeze into fine-mesh strainer set over bowl, extracting as much juice and pulp as possible; press firmly on solids to yield 2 teaspoons juice.

5. While chicken rests, pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from skillet, being careful of hot skillet handle. Add shallot and cook over medium heat until softened, about 30 seconds. Whisk in broth and mustard, scraping up any browned bits. Bring to simmer and cook until mixture is reduced to 3⁄4 cup, about 3 minutes. Stir in any accumulated chicken juices. Off heat, whisk in butter, lemon juice, and thyme. Season with pepper to taste; cover to keep warm. Carve chicken and serve with sauce.

 To secure wings while roasting whole chicken and prevent them from burning, fold them firmly behind neck. They should hold themselves in place.

With the rise of independent distilleries and specialty cocktail bars, it's safe to say that whiskey is having a moment. But for many curious tasters and adventurous drinkers, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding whiskey and its incarnations.

In our latest Please Explain, Heather Greene, whiskey sommelier and author of Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life, talks about the history, and the many cultural variations of whiskey, along with tips on tasting, pairing and serving suggestions. Dr. Renee Hernandez, owner of Tirado Distillery in the Bronx, will also be joining us to talk about all that’s involved in making his "NY Corn Whiskey.” 

Do you have questions about whiskey, bourbon or other grain spirits? Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know Twitter or Facebook!

There are trillions of microbes inside of you. They can make you sick, but many of them keep you alive.

Everyone gets a little paranoid sometimes, but with politicians and presidential candidates lobbing warnings about the threat of terrorism left and right, it can be hard to know when to stop worrying. But as psychologist and author David J. LaPorte explains in his book, Paranoid: Exploring Suspicion from the Dubious to the Delusional paranoia can take on many forms and wriggle its way into even the most trusting minds. On this edition of Please Explain, LaPorte answers your questions on the psychology and neuroscience of paranoia and how the uncertainty of the post-9/11 world makes it easy for paranoia to set down roots.

Send us your questions by writing a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

Caring for the dead, mourning the dead, and commemoration the dead, has always been an essential part of human civilization. For this week's Please Explain, we are talking to historian Thomas Laqueur, whose latest book, The Work of the Dead, exhaustively details why our treatment of death has always been such an important part of human life. 

Everybody lies, sometimes even when we know it's wrong. But then why do we do it? Behavioral scientist Dan Ariely tells us the truth about lying in our latest edition of Please Explain. 

In our latest Please Explain, we examine expert witnesses to find out their role in courts, their influence in trials, and their impact in both civil and criminal cases.

When the World Health Organization announced their findings about the risk factors of eating red meat, many media outlets ran headlines equating bacon to cigarettes. Red meat, coffee, wine, fish, and other foods and drinks have been the source of stories in the media that have been misleading, vague, and contradictory. For this week’s Please Explain, we are talking all about how the media covers nutrition, and what you need to know when reading health and nutrition reporting, with Anahad O’Connor, health reporter at The New York Times. 

Does bacon give you cancer? Up next, please explain is all about nutrition in the headlines. Have a question? Send it our way.

Absolute risk of colon cancer is much lower that people thing https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

"The critical word is 'association'" @anahadoconnor breaks down observational scientific studies https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

"There are studies associating everything we eat with cancer" says @anahadoconnor https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

What's causing obesity? The beverage industry-financed studies says sugary drinks have nothing to do with it.

"I for one always try to eat wild fish" says @anahadoconnor, health reporter for @nytimes https://t.co/c7tYFWmuxJ

Cervantes, Voltaire, the Bible: English audiences rely on translators to access to some of the world’s most important texts, but when it comes to translation, there is no magic formula.

For our latest Please Explain, we are talking to the journalist Wendy Williams about the history of horses. Horses and humans have worked together for thousands of years, and they have made a big impact on the course of human civilization. Williams' book is The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion.

Event: Wendy Williams will be speaking and signing books at Rutgers' G.H. Cook Campus, at the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health Building, 65 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, on Nov. 2 at 7:00 p.m.

In 2006, Congress tried to crack down on illegal online sports betting. Nearly a decade later, Internet gambling is flourishing, and a new business that increasingly looks like gambling, fantasy sports, is winning millions of players and stoking controversy. For this week's Please Explain, we talk to James Glanz and Walt Bogdanich, part of the New York Times investigative team that, with the PBS series "Frontline," investigated the business, and the technology, of illegal gambling in the Internet age. 

When Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 a pill, it brought the issue of drug prices to the spotlight. Today's Please Explain: Drug Prices.

Don't freak out! But our latest Please Explain is all about fear. Sociologist Margee Karr discusses what fear does to our brains, why we scream, and why we love horror movies.

In our latest Please Explain, 'New Yorker' staff writer John Seabrook unravels how to make musical hits, the business behind them, and what they do to our brains.