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.

Hi, it's Lynn Rosetta, Casper, and you're listening to The Splendid Table, a show for people who love to eat.

Our program is produced by Minnesota Public Radio for PRI.

Well, today it's a new perspective on farmers' markets.

Can the farmer make a living from what we buy?

And is the market the answer to saving the vanishing family farm?

Our guest went behind the scenes in markets from

Hawaii to New York. She is food expert Deborah Madison, author of local flavors, cooking

and eating from America's farmers' markets. Our opinionated cheese authority, Steve Jenkins,

has the secret fat code to cheese and his picks of the world's great sheep cheeses.

David Rosengarten, the Prince of the Picky Pallet, is taste testing for the ultimate hot dog.

Then we plumb the mystery of how cooks learn to let go of their art and move on with their lives,

a la Martha Stewart.

And as always, in the second half of the show, we're going to be opening the lines

for your calls. That number is 800, 537-52-52. So let's roll with Jane and Michael Stern. They write

the road food column in Gourmet Magazine. Lynn, we've been out in the country outside of Traverse City, Michigan, looking for ice cream.

And boy, did we find a nice place.

It's called Moomers.

And Moomers refers to, I think, probably what a child calls a cow, you know, a moomer.

I mean, it's something that moose.

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