The cook and food writer Alison Roman frequently emanates and celebrates a certain spilled-milk imperfectionism. Her on-camera candor and laid-back cooking style have both contributed to growing her devoted audience of home cooks as well as the food-curious, many of whom have followed her and her singular recipes over the past decade-plus, from her prior media roles (Bon Appétit and The New York Times) to the independent-platform path she’s now on. That’s not to mention her three best-selling cookbooks, Dining In (2017), Nothing Fancy (2019), and Sweet Enough (2023), as well as her forthcoming fourth title, Something from Nothing, out Nov. 11. For Roman, there’s joy and wisdom to be found in embracing a certain amount of honest-to-goodness mess, all while maturing into different versions of herself, in and out of the kitchen.

On the episode, she reflects on the diaristic quality of her dishes, how time and money have shaped her cooking style and recipe-writing approach throughout her life, and the beauty of prioritizing tangible things in our ephemeral digital age.

Special thanks to our Season 12 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Alison Roman

[03:19] Something From Nothing (2025)

[04:04] Dining In (2017)

[04:04] Sweet Enough (2023)

[09:03] Nothing Fancy (2019)

[14:31] First Bloom

[20:29] The Tenth Muse by Judith Jones (2007)

[20:29] Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin (1988)

[20:29] Books by Anthony Bourdain

[20:29] Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton (2011)

[29:10] Chris Bernabeo

[44:58] Solley’s

[52:26] Christina Tosi

[53:44] Bon Appétit

For the British writer and cultural critic Olivia Laing, restoring and tending to their backyard garden has prompted complex questions of power, community, and mystery, concepts that they beautifully excavate in their latest book, the fascinating and mind-expanding The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise. Whether in their nonfiction works, including the critically acclaimed The Lonely City (2016), their art and culture writing and criticism (2020’s Funny Weather: ​​Art in an Emergency), or their novels (2018’s Crudo and the forthcoming The Silver Book, out this November), Laing turns an incisive eye to examining what it will take for people—our “temporal selves,” as they put it—to forgo loneliness and isolation, reconnect with nature and one another, and flourish on a planet in crisis.

On this episode, recorded in their apartment at the Barbican in London, Laing explores gardening and writing’s symbiotic relationship; the act of rebelling against a reactive culture by embracing slowness; and the importance of imagining, in vivid detail, the kinds of utopias we could one day very well live in.

Special thanks to our Season 12 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Olivia Laing

[02:59] The Barbican

[06:02] “The Garden Against Time” (2024)

[06:16] Mark Rumary

[12:15] “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” (2016)

[16:37] Piet Oudolf

[17:57] Middleton Place

[17:57]The Sackler family

[21:24] “Modern Nature” (1991)

[22:20] “Paradise Lost” (1667)

[24:02] “The Secret Garden” (1911)

[24:02]“Tom’s Midnight Garden” (1958)

[26:38] “The Garden” (1681)

[27:38] “Everybody: A Book About Freedom” (2021) 

[32:15] “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” (2014)

[37:06] David Wojnarowicz’s "Magic Box"

[37:06]Ana Mendieta

[38:01] Agnes Martin

[40:17] “Funny Weather: ​​Art in an Emergency” (2020) 

[40:52] “Crudo” (2018) 

[44:48] “A Dance to the Music of Time” (1951–1975) 

[46:57] “The Silver Book” (2025)

[49:10] Federico Fellini

[49:10] Pier Paolo Pasolini

[51:44] “News from Nowhere” (1890)

The British author and journalist Oliver Burkeman has spent decades pondering what it means to live a meaningful life, both in his former Guardian column “This Column WIll Change Your Life” and across several books—most recently, Meditations for Mortals, out in paperback this October. That’s why he brings a healthy dose of skepticism to so-called “time management” systems and productivity hacks as a means toward true fulfillment. Burkeman’s compelled by the notion that, rather than being separate from time, human beings are time. If people faced the reality of their limited time on the planet head on, he believes there’s a real chance to experience greater, more engaged feelings of aliveness.

On the episode—our Season 12 kick-off—Burkeman discusses why he’s eschewing  perfectionism and finding unexpected liberation in the premise that, to some extent, the worst has already happened, and the best may still be ahead.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Oliver Burkeman

[02:45] “Meditations for Mortals” (2024)

[06:15] Martin Heidegger

[06:15] “Technics and Civilization” (2010)

[06:15] “Being and Time” (1927)

[06:15] “Time Warrior” (2011)

[06:15] “Time Surfing” (2017)

[06:15] “Anti-Time Management” (2022)

[07:51] Medieval peasants

[07:51] “The 4-Hour Workweek”

[11:42] Alicja Kwade

[17:40 “Ichi-go, ichi-e” (“one time, one meeting”)

[20:26] Eckhart Tolle

[21:02] Agnes Martin

[21:42] “The Road Not Taken”

[37:15] “This Column Will Change Your Life”

[48:16] Nicholas Carr

[48:16] Clay Shirky

[51:05] Jennifer Roberts

[55:39] Pomodoro Technique 

[55:46] Kanban

[58:23] James Hollis

[59:16] Alfred Adler

[59:16] “The Courage to Be Disliked” (2024)

[1:03:12] Stoicism

As the physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker—the author of the mind-expanding book Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life’s Emergence—sees it, every single thing on Earth can be traced to life’s beginnings. Walker studies the origins of life on this planet—one of science’s greatest unsolved puzzles—and, beyond that, whether alien life exists on other planets. As part of her research, she’s advancing a physics known as “assembly theory,” a new way of thinking and talking about life’s origins and, in turn, time. She displays that rare gift for demystifying deeply layered concepts—and for reminding us of how profound it is to be alive, in this moment, in the first place. 

On this special episode—produced in partnership with the Aspen Art Museum and recorded in Aspen, Colorado, during the inaugural AIR festival earlier this month—Walker makes a compelling case for why understanding life’s origins is crucial to understanding ourselves.

Special thanks to our episode sponsor, the Aspen Art Museum. 

Show Notes:

Sara Imari Walker

[6:59] Assembly theory

[10:00] Thomas Moynihan

[11:13] “Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence” (2024)

[13:36] Michael Lachmann

[18:38] Lee Cronin

[18:48] Bertrand Russell 

[21:04] “A.I. Is Life”

[24:10] Paley’s watch argument

[25:36] Steve Jobs

[25:54] “Reflecting on the iPhone's cultural impacts as it turns 18”

[29:14] “It’s Time to Retire the Word ‘Technology’”

[32:46] Copernican Revolution

[36:14] “Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein” or “One Hundred Authors Against Einstein” (1931)

[40:54] Arizona State University: School of Earth and Space Exploration

[45:03] AIR Aspen

[46:20] Carlo Rovelli

[47:44] Thaddeus Mosley

[47:54] Constantin Brâncuși

[47:55] Isamu Noguchi

In 2003, when the author James Frey published his first book, A Million Little Pieces—a gut-punch account of his experience with addiction and rehab—nobody could have expected what would come next. Thanks to an Oprah Book Club endorsement, A Million Little Pieces was instantly catapulted to bestseller status, but soon blew up in scandal after Frey admitted to having falsified certain portions of the book, which had been marketed as a memoir. The drama that ensued sparked a media controversy—one that now, around 20 years later, feels petty and misplaced, especially in the context of today’s cancel-culture climate. More than 10 million copies of A Million Little Pieces have sold since, and Frey is still at it, writing, publishing, and pushing the boundaries of his art. His latest novel, Next to Heaven, is a rollicking, raunchy, absurd-yet-not satire about money, murder, and the all-too-human desires for power, pleasure, and greed. 

On the episode—our Season 11 finale, in which Frey sat lotus for the entire duration—he reflects on the A Million Little Pieces saga; his long-term study of Taoism; writing as a gateway to vulnerability; and why love, for him, is the greatest drug there is.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

James Frey

[03:39] “Tao Te Ching”

[03:39] Lao Tzu

[03:39] Stephen Mitchell

[03:39] Taoism

[07:15] Cubism

[11:35] “A Million Little Pieces” (2003)

[12:40] “Next To Heaven” (2025)

[12:40] New Canaan, Connecticut

[15:34] Jackie Collins

[15:34] “Hollywood Wives” (1983)

[15:34] Danielle Steel

[19:59] Honoré de Balzac

[26:51] “Katerina” (2018) 

[26:51] “Full Fathom Five” (1947) by Jackson Pollock

[34:26] “Larry King Live” (2006)

[36:23] “Tropic of Cancer” (1971)

[39:55] “Up to Me” (1985)

[42:38] “Kissing a Fool” (1998)

[48:00] “My Friend Leonard” (2005)

[48:00] “Bright Shiny Morning” (2008)

[48:00] “The Final Testament” (2011)

[56:10] “Author Is Kicked Out of Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club”

[56:10] “James Frey: ‘I Always Wanted to Be the Outlaw’”

[01:01:04] Bret Easton Ellis

[01:01:04] Jay McInerney

[01:01:04] Norman Mailer

[01:06:44] Rashid Johnson

[01:06:44] HBO’s “Native Son” (2019)

Through her sharp and biting political commentary—whether as host of the podcast Fast Politics, as a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, or as a political analyst on MSNBC—Molly Jong-Fast has, over the past decade, become something of a household name. But, as the daughter of the once-famous author and second-wave feminist Erica Jong—whose 1973 novel Fear of Flying catapulted her into the literary limelight—she has actually been in the public eye for much longer, decades before this more recent notoriety of her own making. Jong-Fast’s latest book, the searing, heartbreaking (but also, at times, hilarious) memoir How to Lose Your Mother, is in some sense an effort to take her story back after being in the shadow of her narcissistic, too often out-of-reach mother for so long. It’s also a book about aging and frailty, and an extremely difficult, gut-wrenching year: In 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia, right around the same time that Molly’s husband learned he had a rare cancer.

On the episode, Jong-Fast talks about her own actual fear of flying, in addition to her mother’s book of the same name; 27 years of sobriety and how her time in A.A. has transformed her life; and the importance of confronting the vicissitudes of aging and one’s passage through time.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Molly Jong-Fast

[02:53] “Fear of Flying” (1973)

[02:53] Erica Jong

[03:31] “How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir”

[06:18] “Spartacus” (1951)

[06:18] “April Morning” (1961)

[06:18] “The Immigrants” (1977)

[07:41] Lee Krasner

[08:50] Susan Faludi

[08:50] “Backlash” (1991)

[10:35] “Fear and Flying Erica & Erotica in Connecticut” (1980)

[10:35] “Fanny” (1980)

[13:22] Marty Seif

[16:52] Special Guest: Erica Jong (2023)

[18:05] Pan Am Flight 001

[19:36] “The Year of Magical Thinking” (2005)

[19:36] “Notes to John” (2025)

[24:10] “The Sex Doctors in the Basement” (2005)

[34:11] “Normal Girl” (2000)

[36:22] Jacob Bernstein

[36:22] Carl Bernstein

[36:22] Stalin Peace Prize

[43:07] Michael Tomasky

[45:30] Hazelden

[46:32] “How Molly Jong-Fast Tweeted Her Way to Liberal Media Stardom”

Few artists aim to make sense of the subjectivity and complexity of time and space quite like the Polish-born, Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade. In each of her works, ranging from sculptures and large-scale public installations to films, photographs, and works on paper, Kwade displays an astute sense of temporality and the ticking hands of the clock. Her practice, in a literal and figurative sense, is a quest to understand time as a ruler and shaper of our lives and of our world. For her latest exhibition, “Telos Tales,” on view at Pace Gallery in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood through August 15, Kwade has created three monumental steel-frame sculptures with treelike limbs alongside new mixed-media works in an effort to engage the intangible nature of time. As with all her work, “Telos Tales” is philosophical, illusionistic, and inspires wonder: Long after a viewer has seen it, it will leave them questioning.

On the episode, Kwade considers the unfathomability of all things, finds humor in being human, and explains what a relief it is to know that some questions have no clear answers—and never will. 

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Alicja Kwade

[11:44] “Alicja Kwade: Telos Tales” at Pace Gallery

[14:41] “Hiroshi Sugimoto on Photography as a Form of Timekeeping”

[17:05] “Alicja Kwade: Pretopia” (2025)

[23:07] On Kawara’s Date Paintings

[23:29] “Alicja Kwade & Agnes Martin: Rhythm, Equilibrium, and Time” (2024)

[23:29] “Gegen den Lauf” (2012-2014)

[26:59] “Stellar Day” (2013)

[28:55] “Against the Run” (2015)

[28:55] “Against the Run” (2019)

[28:55] Pinacoteca Agnelli Art Center

[32:15] “88 Seconds” (2017)

[32:15] Eadweard Muybridge

[36:19] Hiroshi Sugimoto

[46:11] Salvador Dalí

[46:11] Harry Houdini

[46:11] Kazimir Malevich

[56:38] “iPhone” (2017)

[56:38] “Computer (PowerMac)” (2017)

[01:01:59] “LinienLand” (2018)

[01:01:59] “Alicja Kwade: Parapivot” (2019)

[01:01:59] “Alicja Kwade: Viva Arte Viva” (2017)

[01:05:42] “L’ordre des Mondes (Totem)” (2024)

[01:10:01] Jason Farago

[01:10:01] “Celestial Visions on the Met Roof”

With one small, clever—and now-trademark—idea in 1990, the chef Thomas Keller turned not only the notion of the ice-cream cone on its head, but the fine-dining world, too. Now, 35 years later, his hospitality group comprises 10 restaurants, including The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se in New York City—both of them three-Michelin-starred—as well as Bouchon Bistro and Bouchon Bakery in Las Vegas and The Surf Club Restaurant in Miami. Across his entire hospitality operation, a highly refined, expertly tuned set of standards feeds his “one-guest-at-a-time” philosophy and culture. In many respects, Keller was at the forefront of a local-focused cooking movement. He was also a pioneer in making fine dining more relaxed and approachable—and decidedly less fussy. The food world today would not be the same were it not for his wide-spanning influence.

On the episode, Keller reflects on how it took two decades of failing and learning from mistakes before at last, in 1994, he opened The French Laundry, which instantly received rave reviews and remains one of the most celebrated restaurants in the world. He also discusses his recent Chef’s Table episode on Netflix and his cameo on the FX show The Bear, memory-making as a key part of his operation, and why persistence is the greatest form of pleasure.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Thomas Keller

[03:21] “Chef’s Table: Legends” (2025)

[03:21] The French Laundry

[03:21] Per Se

[05:49] Grant Achatz

[05:49] Bobby Flay

[05:49] Tom Colicchio

[05:49] Emeril Lagasse

[05:49] Le Pavillon

[08:37] “The Bear”: Season 3, Episode 10 (2024)

[08:37] Christopher Storer

[08:37] “Sense of Urgency” (2013)

[08:37] Hans Zimmer

[08:37] Bouchon Bistro

[08:37] “Thomas Keller’s Roasted Chicken” (2020)

[15:39] “Chef Thomas Keller on Finding Professional Success After 40” (2022)

[21:07] “The French Laundry Cookbook” (1999)

[23:09] Daniel Boulud

[26:43] Graham Kerr

[26:43] “The Galloping Gourmet” (1968)

[29:49] Roland Henin

[30:58] Florence Fabricant

[30:58] “Food; Flights of Fancy” (1988)

[30:58] “Checkers Has Lost Its Chef” (1992)

[33:46] “Sally Schmitt, Trend-Setting Restaurateur, Is Dead at 90”

[36:43] The French Laundry Kitchen

[36:43] Snøhetta

[36:43] “Thomas Keller, an Exacting Chef at a Crossroads”

[45:18] “The Reach of a Restaurant” TED Talk

[45:18] “The French Laundry, Per Se” (2020)

The drummer and percussionist Billy Martin, whose name many Time Sensitive listeners may recognize—he created the Time Sensitive theme song—defies any boxed-in or limiting definitions of his work. Best known as a member of the band Medeski Martin & Wood (MMW), he’s spent the past three-plus decades making experimental, boundary-pushing, and uncategorizable instrumental jazz-funk-groove music, shaping sounds that feel as expansive as they are definitive and distinctive. Across all his artistic output, Martin continually, meditatively searches for harmony. He is also a composer, a teacher, a visual artist, and a builder and craftsman. His expansive creative practice comes most alive at his home in Englewood, New Jersey, where he has cultivated a bamboo garden, crafted his own Japanese-style teahouse, and constructed a music studio. Martin is someone for whom rhythm is not just something heard, but also seen and felt.

On the episode, he talks about his MMW journey at length, his concept of “rhythmic harmony,” and why he views sound creation as a sacred act.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes:

Billy Martin

[05:56] Medeski Martin & Wood

[05:56] John Medeski

[05:56] Chris Wood

[05:56] “Not Not Jazz” (2024)

[08:36] Iggy Pop’s “Avenue B” (1999)

[08:36] Don Was

[09:51] “The Lover” (1995)

[09:51] “Friday Afternoon in the Universe” (1995)

[09:51] “Old Angel Midnight” (1973) by Jack Kerouac

[12:08] Ra-Kalam Bob Moses

[12:08] John Scofield

[12:08] David Baker

[14:21] “Shuck It Up” (1993)

[14:21] “It’s a Jungle in Here” (1993)

[16:36] “Latin Shuffle” (1998)

[16:36] “Combustication” (1998)

[16:36] Frankie Malabe

[16:36] Art Blakey

[31:23] Thelonious Monk

[31:23] “Life on Drums” (2011)

[35:43] John Bonham

[35:43] Charlie Watts

[35:43] Stewart Copeland

[35:43] Elvin Jones

[35:43] Max Roach

[35:43] Danny Richmond

[35:43] Charles Mingus

[35:43] Jack DeJohnette

[35:43] Joe Morello

[35:43] Roy Haynes

[35:43] Stan Getz

[35:43] Airto Moreira

[35:43] Naná Vasconcelos

[35:43] Babatunde Olatunji

[37:06] Gus Johnson

[37:06] “Whatever Happened to Gus” (1998)

[37:06] Steve Cannon

[38:05] “Chubb Sub” (1995)

[38:05] ”Uncle Chubb” (1992)

[43:53] “Shack-man” (1996)

[44:18] “Drumming Birds” (2004)

[51:59] “Bamboo Rainsticks” (1999)

[51:59] Amulet Records

[56:58] Creative Music Studio

For the British architect John Pawson, minimalism isn’t just a design philosophy, but a life philosophy—with his 1996 book, Minimum, serving as a defining jumping-off point. Over the course of more than four decades, Pawson has quietly amassed a global following by distilling spaces, objects, and things down to their most essential. With projects ranging from his career-defining Calvin Klein Collection flagship store on Madison Avenue in New York City, completed in 1995, to a remote monastery complex in the Czech Republic he’s been building for Cistercian monks of the Trappist order for more than 25 years; from hotels in Los Angeles, Madrid, and Tel Aviv to London’s Design Museum; from private homes in Colorado, Greece, Japan, Sweden, and beyond, to a chair and cookware; from lamps and linens to doorknobs, bowls, to even a steak knife, Pawson’s tightly focused yet seemingly boundless practice places him in a category all his own.

On the episode—our fourth “site-specific” taping of Time Sensitive, recorded at Pawson’s country home in the Cotswolds—he discusses the problems he sees with trying to turn minimalism into a movement; his deep-seated belief in restraint, both in life and in architecture; and his humble, highly refined approach to creating sacred spaces.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

[06:30] Tetsuka House (2005)

[06:30] “John Pawson’s Approach to Making Life Simpler”

[06:30] Shiro Kuramata

[06:30] Katsura Imperial Villa

[06:30] North York Moors

[11:04] “Minimum” (1996)

[11:04] Sen no Rikyū

[16:00] Calvin Klein Collections Store (1995)

[16:00] Ian Schrager

[16:00] Paul Goldberger

[16:00] Cathay Pacific (1998)

[19:23] “Elements of Style” (1959) by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

[19:23] “Plain Space” (2010)

[19:23] Raymond Carver

[22:46] Bruce Chatwin

[22:46] “Wabi”

[22:46] Chatwin Apartment (1982)

[24:50] Deyan Sudjic

[26:36] Ryōan-ji

[29:35] “John Pawson: Making Life Simpler” (2023)

[28:39] Neuendorf House (1989)

[28:39] Tilty Barn (1995)

[28:39] Claudio Silvestrin

[35:02] Philip Johnson

[37:59] Home Farm (2019)

[37:59] “Home Farm Cooking” (2021)

[44:29] Bill Brandt

[52:49] Hester van Royen Apartment (1981)

[53:48] Casa Malaparte

[53:48] Mies van der Rohe

[53:48] Barcelona Pavilion

[56:27] The Design Museum (2016)

[56:27] Farnsworth House

[56:27] “Inside the Brick House, Philip Johnson’s Private Playground”

[58:57] Pawson House (1999)

[1:02:23] The Feuerle Collection (2016)

[1:07:16] Abbey of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr (2004)

[1:19:27] Pieter Jansz. Saenredam