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The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

Christmas Cheese

The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

American Public Media

Food, Arts

4.33K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2013

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Opinionated cheesemonger Steve Jenkins brings us his annual cheese picks for the holidays. We check in with writer Junot Diaz about the Dominican food of his childhood. He is the author of the award-winning book This Is How You Lose Her. And Sally Schneider of The Improvised Life has inspiring thoughts on making small tables large and beautiful for next to nothing.


Broadcast dates for this episode:


  • December 22, 2012 (originally aired)
  • December 27, 2013 (rebroadcast)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country.

0:08.1

We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.

0:24.4

Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts.

0:32.2

The Splendid Table is listener supported. If this podcast made your table splendid in 2013, support it as part of your year-end giving.

0:42.5

Get a tax deduction and receive a special gift from the Splendid Table. Give at splendidtable.org.

0:49.4

It's the Splendid Table from APM, American Public Media.

1:01.8

Music blended table from APM American Public Media. I'm Lynn Rosetta, Casper.

1:04.0

You know, with the craziness of this time of year, especially this year, the lights are what get to me.

1:10.0

The Christmas lights, the candles. You want

1:13.0

instant intimacy with people, just light a candle. Now, those lights come from the old idea that

1:19.3

fire protects us from dark threats. You defy this fear of an endless winter by lighting candles,

1:26.3

feasting, and for good karma, you fed the needy.

1:30.1

It was like stamping your foot and saying, I believe the warmth and the light will come back.

1:36.5

So, you know, it couldn't hurt to put a candle in the window tonight and to stick around for this hour of The Splendid Table.

2:26.9

This is The Splendid Table from APM, American Public Media, the show for people who love to eat. Writer Juno Diaz has moved into literary rock star status with his latest book.

2:28.2

This is How You Lose Her.

2:31.7

Born in the Dominican Republic, raised poor in New Jersey,

2:36.1

now Juno is a professor of creative writing at MIT. He holds a Pulitzer, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and an armload of other awards. He writes about

2:42.0

Dominican immigrants, people figuring out their lives while they're halfway between

2:46.6

memories of their homeland and the realities of a supposed promised land.

2:52.4

Juno's still part of the Dominican community in northern Manhattan.

2:56.8

It's where he loves to eat and be.

...

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