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. Slow down.

I went still today about that time I told a group of fellow writers at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference that I attained the rank of an Eagle Scout when I had only done a year as a boy scout.

How utterly embarrassing.

I felt myself sinking when asked a series of questions by a guy who actually completed the requirements.

He jokingly called me out in front of everyone gathered around the campfire.

I admitted my fib, then jumped into the waters of the lake.

I wished I could stay hidden underwater all night.

For all sorts of complicated reasons, I lied.

I wanted to belong, to not be seen as different.

I was young and in an environment that was competitive and foreign. I feared society's

projection of me as an interlober and thus burnished my biography.

I think I added that I also rode in the Dad Valve Regatta along the Schoolkill River.

That summer, I learned one of the most important

lessons of my life. Nothing beats simply being yourself, which I already knew.

Language was complicit in my acts of reinvention. I used the fluidity of words to craft a new self,

...