Megnut goes all food all the time. Yay! We’re going with you… Love the notes of Michael Pollan & Ruth Reichl’s talk at 92nd St Y.

Nina Planck’s new Real Foods markets to open in lower Manhattan next month. Intrigued to check out the markets and also her new book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why. Her explanations on why the least processed, least industrial, most natural forms of food are the healthiest (even though they may be higher in fat, cholesterol, whatever) really resonate.

I think I found my next running soundtrack…. this sounds like summer. Stream 4 songs from Cheikh Lô (NB: it loads loud) or check it out on Amazon or iTunes. (thanks stereogum!)

Excerpt from Appreciative Intelligence : Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn in this month’s Ode Magazine: “Appreciative intelligence… is that capacity not to flinch but to learn from the things you fear… The most recent research shows our intelligence can be enhanced and nurtured; it is not an innate, unchangeable ability. At least three different ways of changing your behaviours and thoughts enhance appreciative intelligence.”

Matthieu Ricard, a fascinating geneticist from the Institut Pasteur who became a Buddhist monk, talking at the NY State Psychiatric Institute on how meditation changes the brain, happiness (also the subject of his new book: Happiness : A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill), anger and all that good stuff available as mp3 download and podcast subscription from New York Academy of Sciences.