Pasta is a staple of Italian food, but noodles are also an important part of Asian cuisine. Pasta is versatile, comes in hundreds of shapes and sizes, and on this week’s Please Explain we’ll find out how it’s made and ways to cook with it. Joining us: Ron Palladino, pasta expert and Fresh Pasta counter general manager at Eataly, and Jack Bishop, editorial director of America’s Test Kitchen and author of several cookbooks, including The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, Pasta e Verdura, and the editor of Pasta Revolution.  

Lou DiPalo, third-generation expert olive oil importer and the co-owner of Di Palo Fine Foods in New York City, and Nancy Harmon Jenkins, a writer and food historian who’s the author of The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook, tell us all about olive oil--from its history to to how it's made to its many varieties.

For Please Explain, Curious Cook Harold McGee talks about the science of cooking—from how heat changes meat to the differences between baking powder and baking soda. He’s the author of a number of books, including Keys to Good Cooking, and On Food and Cooking.

Eugenia Bone, author of Mycophilia: Revelations of the Weird World of Mushrooms, talks about the world of mushrooms and other fungi. She’ll cover how to forage for mushrooms, how to identify the good and the poisonous, how fungi grow, and how to eat them.

Fertilizer is crucial for food—plants need it in order to grow and thrive. Harold Van Es, professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University, explains what fertilizer is made of, why it's so important, and how to manage it.

Let us know if you have a question! Leave it as a comment or call us at 212-433-9692.

Grains have been a cornerstone of the human diet since the dawn of civilization. We'll find out about the wide variety of grains and the difference between whole, refined, and enriched grains.Abdullah A. Jaradat, USDA Department of Soil Management Research, and Maria Speck, author of Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, explain.

If you look at many packaged food, you’re likely to find the words “natural flavors” and “artificial flavors” on the ingredients list. These terms seem ambiguous, but they explain why much of the foods Americans eat tastes the way it does. For today’s Please Explain, explain Dr. Gary Reineccius, professor and head of the Flavor Research and Education Center in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota, and Barb Stuckey, professional food developer and author of Taste: Surprising Stories and Science about Why Food Tastes Good, explain what natural and artificial flavors are, how they’re made, and why they’re used in everything from cough syrup to candy to French fries to frozen yogurt.

Sascha Anderson, Director of Education at Murray’s Cheese, and Gianaclis Caldwell, cheesemaker at Pholia Farm and author of Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking, talk about the wide variety of cheeses, how to select cheeses, and how to make cheese.

Shirley Corriher, author of BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking, and Chef Scott McMillan, a pastry art Instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, explain the particulars of baking—from different flours to measuring by weight to the differences between baking powder and baking soda.

This week’s Please Explain is all about so-called superfoods—natural, whole foods that are superior sources of anti-oxidants and essential nutrients. Dr. Drew Ramsey, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, and co-author of The Happiness Diet and the forthcoming Fifty Shades of Kale, explains which foods are healthiest—from nuts to fish to olive oil to grass-fed beef—for our bodies and our brains.

There’s growing concern that endocrine disrupting chemicals have been linked to health problems in humans, and this month a report issued by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme called these chemicals a "global threat" that should be addressed. Heather Patisaul, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, North Carolina State University, and Urvashi Rangan, director of the Consumer Safety and Sustainability Group at Consumer Reports, explain what endocrine disruptors—like BPA, phthalates, some pesticides and fire retardants—are, where they’re found, and how they affect human development and health.

This week's Please Explain we'll find out what nurses do, how they're trained, and why there always seems to be a shortage. Dr. Bobbie Berkowitz, Dean of Columbia University School of Nursing, explains the art and science of nursing. She's joined by Ghislaine Chery, nurse at Jamaica Hospital and for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.

For this week’s Please Explain, the Leonard Lopate Show finds out how we process all the sounds we hear every day—from the hum of the heater to the wail of sirens to music to speech—and how it shapes our brains and behavior.

Gretchen Reynolds, writer of the New York Times Phys Ed column and author of The First 20 Minutes, answers questions and debunks myths about exercise.

When you drop a letter in a mailbox, how exactly does it end up where it’s supposed to go? We’ll find out how the U.S. Postal Service works and why it’s struggling for survival. Nancy A. Pope, curator from the National Postal Museum and organizer of Systems at Work, and Richard John, professor at Columbia University School of Journalism and author of Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse.

Corey S. Powell, Editor at Large of Discover magazine, talks about the biggest stories in science last year—including the new Mars rover; the discovery of the Higgs boson; the Human Microbiome Project; climate change, storms, and melting polar ice; private space flight; self-driving cars; the comeback of measles, mumps, and whooping cough; and more!

Today's Please Explain is all about helium and the helium shortage. We speak with Dr. Martin Stute, a noble gas geochemist at Barnard college and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and with Dr. Joe Peterson a Bureau of Land Management Assistant Field Manager for Helium Resources in the BLM Amarillo, Texas Field Office.

For this week’s Please Explain we're picking up where last week's left off. We'll find out why stress can take a toll on our mental and physical health and find out how to reduce stress in our lives and cope with it better. We're joined again by Dr. Drew Ramsey, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and co-author of The Happiness Diet,  and  Dr. Rajita Sinha, director of the Yale Stress Center, and Professor of Psychiatry, Neurobiology and Child Study at Yale University School of Medicine.

This week’s Please Explain is all about stress—and why it can take a toll on our mental and physical health. We're joined by Dr. Drew Ramsey, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, looks at how stress affects our health and ways to cope with stress and anxiety in everyday life. He’s co-author of The Happiness Diet. And Rajita Sinha, director of the Yale Stress Center, and Professor of Psychiatry, Neurobiology and Child Study at Yale University School of Medicine.

The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, prompting some to believe the world will end on that date. For this week’s Please Explain, we thought we’d find out about that calendar and the many others used through history by different cultures to account for the days and months that make up the year. Joining us are John Pratt and Ken Seidelmann, Research Professor at the University of Virginia’s Department of Astronomy.