Episode 348: Mindless Eating

This week we take a look at what controls our eating. Is it real hunger or something more complex? We'll have answers from our guest, Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Laboratory. His new book is Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. It's an endangered species for the Sterns — an old-time American chili parlor that's alive and well at Mike's Chili Parlor in Seattle.

Food writer Francine Maroukian shares her idiosyncratic approach to building a cookbook library and shares some favorite titles from her own shelves. Then Lynne weighs in with some sources to check when starting or adding to a cookbook collection. That brilliant culinary trickster, Chef Michel Richard, has tips that make the new kitchen technology doable for home cooks. The recipe for Low Carb-O-Nara is from Chef Richard's book Happy in the Kitchen: The Craft of Cooking, the Art of Eating.

Celebrity Stump Master Christopher Kimball returns for another round of Stump the Cook, we have a report on bottled waters, and the phone lines will be open for your calls.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

• January 6, 2007 (originally aired)

• January 5, 2008 (rebroadcast)