Headphones off; podcasts on
With my daily routine disrupted, my podcast listening schedule was taken quite a hit. No daily commute. No walks to the grocery store or to a friend's house. No need to plug in to tune out office chatter. I'm trying to figure out ways to recapture some of the moments that used to give me calm -- such as going for a solo walk after wrapping up work for the day -- to mimic the long walk back to my apartment I used to take at the end of the day in DC. There are a lot of great podcast options right now to give you an escape! Here's a selection of new podcasts and old favorites for you to work into your new normal in whatever way works best for you:
Samin Nosrat (of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat fame) and Hrishikesh Hirway (of Song Exploder and The West Wing Weekly fame) have teamed up for a new podcast designed to get you answers to all of your food questions. Home Cooking is specifically designed with quarantine in mind, Samin is here to answer everything from what you should do with all the beans in your pantry to what to bake if you can't find any flour. Hrishi moderates and shares his cooking recommendations in slightly smaller doses. These two have an excellent rapport and their voices will both soothe you and provide you with incredibly helpful information!
I've likely put in a plug for NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour in every other newsletter but I want to give an extra recommendation for them now, as they've really customized the show to give you the best recommendations for this current time. While they're still covering what's new and exciting, like Tiger King, they're also mixing in more frequent episodes that don't focus on a specific topic like Short Bursts of Joy to Change Your Mood or Book Recommendations to Read While Isolating. They also just recently announced that they'll soon be releasing DAILY episodes!
I've previously wrote about Kevin Porter's new podcast Inside Voices, where he interviews different podcast hosts. But now that I've had more time to really listen to some of the episodes, I want to recommend it again. As I've listened, I've realized a lot of times Kevin is talking to hosts that I feel like I hear from frequently, for example he talks with Hrishikesh Hirway (I've already listed his credentials above) and Glen Weldon (from Pop Culture Happy Hour), but when I hear Glen and Hrishi talking on their own podcasts, they're often speaking about TV shows or interviewing guests. I get glimpses and peeks into their daily lives but I haven't really gotten to learn about THEM. Kevin's interviews shed new light on people who feel familiar but are really relatively unknown.
Real-life couple Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon have also started a quarantine podcast appropriately titled Staying In. Because Emily has a chronic illness, she's often had to isolate herself in the past, so they're providing recommendations and best practices for being home, alongside fun interviews. Because we only got a glimpse into their relationship dynamic in The Big Sick (which they co-wrote; Kumail starred in it as a fictional version of himself and Zoe Kazan played the fictional role of Emily), it's fun to hear their IRL banter.
