The Washington Post calls Mary Roach "America's funniest science writer" and the fact that she's the author of six NYT bestselling books (including Stiff, Gulp, and her latest, Fuzz), pretty much confirms it. I fell in love with her voice recently when I picked up Gulp on a whim -- the book is disgusting, hilarious, and fascinating -- so imagine my delight when she agreed to come on my Lunch Therapy. In today's session, Mary talks about her "reckless" adventures, including the time she became somebody's "pee buddy" to study bashful bladders, the time she accidentally chatted up a Yakuza in Tokyo, eating fetal duck bills at a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, and bungee jumping (which she says is way safer than skiing). We also cover rebelling against her traditional family, cursing at the dinner table, whether or not her mother farted (spoiler alert: she didn't), how her palate expanded when she moved to San Francisco, and what, exactly, a narwhal tastes like.
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Mary Roach's Cheap and Lazy Rice Bowl with Seaweed and Burdock