Hey, it's Francis Lamb, host of the splendid table.

And you know, I just want to tell you that our show is a great place to come to for some holiday sanity.

We're getting cooking help from amazing people this holiday season,

including Chef Kristen Kish, Errik Kephere, co-book authors, Jocelyn Jelk Adams, Dan Pelosi, and Amy Felon.

We have cooking, eating, and gifting ideas for anyone you're going to have at your table.

But listen to the splendid table, wherever you get your podcast.

Talk to you soon. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. I boarded the train in Albany and she in Hudson, New York.

For nearly an hour, I silently read next to her

and occasionally looked out the window.

Morning light cast the entire train car a golden hue. She

sipped her to go coffee and listlessly flipped through a magazine. The train

sped to New York City. Gulls raced above the river's watery mirror, then

beard.

She finally intoned, Rita Dove? You must be a writer, more precisely a poet. I confessed and told her I was heading to the city to teach a course titled Visionary Company. She confessed that she was a literary agent, that

her firm represented a few poets including the estate of Adrian Rich, but not many.

What followed was a cocoon of conversation about books, reading taste, commercial fiction, and travel.

When the conductor came over the loudspeaker

I suddenly realized the volume of chatter around us.

I had not noticed the many commuters now crowding the owl.

And where did the time go?

As the train pulled into Penn Station, we all rose,

...