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Michael Pollan, critically acclaimed author and journalist, sits down with writer Jack Hitt to discuss the former’s recent work and other topics related to food and cooking. Jul 15, 2013

"Michael Pollan ‘Raw’: A Conversation with Michael Pollan and Jack Hitt about cooking, eating, and writing”

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846147500,00.html

A uniquely enjoyable quest to understand the transformative magic of cooking - from Michael Pollan, bestselling author of In Defence of Food

In a culture of celebrity chefs and food reality shows, in countries which are crammed with fresh ingredients flown in from every corner of the Earth, we nonetheless year-on-year wade ever deeper into a great swamp of processed foods. The more we watch food on television, the less food we actually prepare and cook. 

Michael Pollan's marvellous new book is a clarion-call for the virtues and values of proper cooking - an essential, defining human activity which sits at the heart of our cultures, shapes family life and is in itself hugely enjoyable. Pollan recreates the transformative fundamentals of how we cook, building from the most basic principles: cooking with fire, cooking with water, cooking with air and cooking with earth. 

Cooked is an extremely funny and surprising plea to Pollan's readers to take control of their own fates and revel again in what should be a lifetime's engagement with the almost magical activity of making food. And it is, of course, about so much more - how cooking can transform both how we think about ourselves and about our families and friends.

Interview with Michael Pollan, author of Cooked

In this episode we are going to demonstrate how everything we know can all be explained with the help of scientific research and theories.  From the facts about dieting to the processes of cooking; from analysing the digital impact on society to the future of material science; and from alien invasions to the apocalypse, our incredible line-up of scientists, authors and books have it covered.

The Penguin Podcast: Science feat. Michael Pollan, Rick Yancey and Stephen Emmott

"My book, READING WITH PATRICK, is about a student of mine named Patrick, and this remarkable literary and intellectual awakening we experienced together in a county jail in Arkansas. He was a student in my class who was incredibly bright, really quiet, and just had trouble coming to school. I really encouraged him to come to school to write and to read and we had this incredible year together where he improved incredibly. Three years after this, I’ve left Arkansas—it’s a place where a lot of people leave—I agonize about it, I decide to go to law school. My parents are like, “what the heck are you doing in Arkansas?” Three years later, I’m in law school and I find out from a friend that Patrick had gotten into a fight and killed someone. I was totally devastated. I was shocked. I went back to Arkansas to visit him in county jail and I discovered that his reading skills had regressed. They were worse when I first met him in the eighth grade, and it’s because he had dropped out of school the year after I left the Delta. The heart of the book is really about us reading together in jail for seven months while we’re waiting for his trial, and about the incredible agility and the power of reading together and writing together. And it’s also about me grappling with my own failures and trying to think about the legacy of racism and poverty in the Mississippi Delta."

S2 E62: Michelle Kuo, Author of Reading with Patrick

"What inspired me to write MEDITATE WITH ME: A Step-by-Step Mindfulness Journey was I wanted kids to have a way to slow down. I wanted to give kids a beloved book that they could connect to, that they could interact with, practices that were easy for them, a way to feel their breath in their body, a way to slow down when they need it, and a way to really calm themselves…a way to sort of start practicing self-soothing techniques that they’ll really need throughout their entire lives."

S2 E63: Mariam Gates, Author of Meditate With Me

"I was inspired to write this book, UNLEASHING THE INNOVATORS, because I love big companies, I worked in one for 25 years, and in my consulting practice, company after company I meet is struggling with culture change, and revitalization, and growth, and energy, and risk and dealing with fear of failure. And many of them were using startups to try to kind of put new energy into the company. And yet, I didn’t think there was a playbook for that."

S2 E65: Jim Stengel, Author of Unleashing the Innovators

"My book THE FOUR TENDENCIES is about a personality framework that I’ve identified called the Four Tendencies that divides all of humanity into four types: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. I got my first insight into this framework when I had lunch with a friend and she said something that got me obsessed with this question of personality types. She said, 'I know I would be happier if I would go running, and when I was in high school I was on the track team and I never missed track practice, so why can’t I go running now?' And I thought, 'Well, why? It’s the same person, the same behavior, at that time it was effortless but now she can’t do it. What’s going on?' My determination to figure out the answer to that question, in the end, led me to write a whole book, called THE FOUR TENDENCIES."

S2 E66: Gretchen Rubin, Author of The Four Tendencies

"I think that I realized there were a lot of stories and ideas that didn’t really make sense to talk about on stage in a stand-up context because they were just too embarrassing, or not funny enough, or just too personal, and I couldn’t figure out a way to perform them live. And so I started writing them down and they just sat in this document, and I just hoped one day I’d get brave enough to do it or smart enough to figure out how to do them on stage, and I just couldn’t. People kept suggesting I write a book and I always just felt like, 'Oh God, that’s something you do when you have a long life.' I just didn’t feel like I had enough to offer, and then I thought, “Oh, maybe I should do all those stories that I've never figured out how to tell on stage. Maybe they’re a book.' And I started looking at them and I was like, “Wow this stuff’s embarrassing, I’m never gonna be able to say this in front of people.' So I just gave up on that ever happening and I started turning it into a book.  And then to get through it I had to get an intention together, I had to get a mantra together and I was like, 'Okay, I’m gonna write the book that I wish had been available to me when I was 18. I wanna write a bible for people who want to grow and feel better about their awful choices.'"

S2 E70: Whitney Cummings, Author of I'm Fine...and Other Lies

"My book, SO MUCH I WANT TO TELL YOU: Letters to My Little Sister, is a collection of essays and lessons that I’ve learned over the past decade since her suicide in 2007."

S2 E72: Anna Akana, Author of So Much I Want to Tell You

"I had been working in the single-mom space through my blog and podcast, and speaking and media engagements, for more than five years. I was raised by a single mom, I became a single mom, and I had a lot of initial shame around being a single mom. And, you know what? It happens to suit me really well. And I found myself relaxing into this time that I’m in and finding all these women—there’s ten million single moms in our country, millions worldwide, and these women have nothing to be ashamed about. I’m meeting incredible women every day that are doing incredible things—in business, in their communities, with their families—and I wanted to reach out to them. And I wanted to inspire the women that aren’t quite there yet."

S2 E75: Emma Johnson, Author of The Kickass Single Mom

"I wrote this book, AN AMERICAN FAMILY, to tell the story of my family’s immigration to the United States. But behind all this, the American values that inspired me to decide to come to the United States and then make it a home."

S2 E76: Khizr Khan, Author of American Family

"PLAYING WITH FIRE is set in the 1968 presidential campaign, but the book is about nothing less than life and death, because that's what was at stake in the 1968 presidential campaign."

S2 E78: Lawrence O'Donnell, Author of Playing With Fire

"In this New Year, you might want to try meditation. Some of you may have wondered about the benefits, stress reduction, lowering of anxiety, helping you cope more efficiently, be less frustrated, less addicted in your behavior. The most important thing from the beginning is not to turn it into another self-improvement project. Meditation can be useful if you don’t expect too much from it. So let me guide you a little bit into the way I think about it."

S3 E01: Mark Epstein, Author of Advice Not Given

 In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.

Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse–trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.

The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

Available for purchase at:
<a href="http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781611761436,00.html?Cooked_Michael_Pollan">Penguin.com - Audiobook (CD format)</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cooked-A-Natural-History-Transformation/dp/1611761433/ref=tmm_abk_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1366918679&sr=8-1">Amazon - Audiobook (CD format)</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cooked-A-Natural-History-Transformation/dp/B00BMBATXY/ref=tmm_aud_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1366918679&sr=8-1">Amazon - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>
<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cooked-michael-pollan/1111672727?ean=9781611761436">Barnes and Noble - Audiobook (CD format)</a>
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/cooked-natural-history-transformation/id639898536?uo=4">iTunes - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>
<a href="http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B00BMBXGFC&qid=1366919249&sr=1-1">Audible - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>
<a href="http://www.emusic.com/book/michael-pollan/cooked/10130938/">emusic.com - Audiobook (downloadable format)</a>


Cooked, written and read by Michael Pollan

Penguin Random House Audio is the market leader for adult and children's audiobook publishing. Follow us on Twitter @PRHAudio.

Cooked, written and read by Michael Pollan

PRH Audio

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