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 Prepare, Aberber-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.

Some are not convinced that romance is an essential human experience. Everyone falls in love, you say, at least once in their life.

Maybe it's true. But what if that one time went awry, or the second time, or even

a third, rejections that are the source of why we cry so hard.

Save the Ramcoms for the believers, they say.

The non-believers possess a shield-like understanding of their emotional and physical needs and prefer to keep

sacrant feelings like love high up on the shelf.

Too messy anywhere else.

Or maybe their careers give them greater purpose than the vicitudes of a beloved.

Or maybe they are down with fervent passion and desire, but also know they are not cut out for a hetero normative

vision of love or monogamy in movies.

I value people who give society an occasion to know when entrenched values,

religiously informed or socially decided, might not necessarily apply to all. They are beacons for others to embrace their natural

selves, which is why I celebrate every incarnation of their love as it manifests between them and other humans,

or simply as expressed as a statement of their freedom. I want everyone to feel like they belong. I admire

...