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

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.

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

It's the splendid table from APM, American Public Media.

I'm Lynn Rossetto Casper.

Just when we think we know all the techniques we need in the kitchen,

Jay Kenji Lopez-Alt turns up.

Traditional blanching is when you'll take a green vegetable and drop it in boiling water.

Not until it's fully cooked, but until it's almost cooked.

And from there, you can chill it and it's ready to go.

Cryo blanching, take those same vegetables, put them in a single layer, and then freeze them.

And freezing, what it does is it'll crystallize the water molecules inside the vegetables.

And those crystals have sort of sharp, jagged edges that end up puncturing and breaking cells,

the same way that boiling a vegetable

will. But what it doesn't do is it doesn't alter the flavor. So you end up with a vegetable

that's essentially blanched, but it still has a very fresh, green flavor. Better cooking

with the food lab. That's the sour on the splendid table.

This is the Splendid Table from APM, American Public Media, the show for people who love to eat.

I'm Lynn Rossetto, Casper.

When Jay Kenji Lopez-Alte was in the fourth grade, he was given an assignment to write a book about who he would become.

His answer, married at 24, kids at 26, PhD at 29, and then find the cure for cancer

and be awarded a Nobel Prize. He would then leave science and spend the next 40 years as the

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