(A rebroadcast). Each year, Erin French receives 60,000 postcards from people asking if they can dine at her Maine restaurant The Lost Kitchen. “It really becomes a luck of the draw lottery. We have big post office bins that arrive and we literally reach in, we grab a postcard, we call that person immediately and say, ‘Okay, when do you want to come?’” This episode, Erin shares with Lale what it’s like to experience her beloved restaurant, now in its 11th season, and spills on her new cooking and travel show on Max, Getting Lost With Erin French, which sees the chef road trip across the US in search of new ingredients and inspiration, and sharing meals with Texas farmers, New Orleans chefs, and more.

In 1954, a young David Attenborough made his début as the star of a new nature show called “Zoo Quest.” The docuseries, which ran for nearly a decade on the BBC, was a sensation that set Attenborough down the path of his life’s work: exposing viewers to our planet’s most miraculous creatures and landscapes from the comfort of their living rooms. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace Attenborough’s filmography from “Zoo Quest” to his program, “Mammals,” a six-part series on BBC America narrated by the now- ninety-eight-year-old presenter. In the seventy years since “Zoo Quest” first aired, the genre it helped create has had to reckon with the effects of the climate crisis—and to figure out how to address such hot-button issues onscreen. By highlighting conservation efforts that have been successful, the best of these programs affirm our continued agency in the planet’s future. “One thing I got from ‘Mammals’ was not pure doom,” Schwartz says. “There are some options here. We have choices to make.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“Mammals” (2024)
“Zoo Quest” (1954-63)
“Are We Changing Planet Earth?” (2006)
“The Snow Leopard,” by Peter Matthiessen
“My Octopus Teacher” (2020)
“Life on Our Planet” (2023)
“I Like to Get High at Night and Think About Whales,” by Samantha Irby

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This episode originally aired on July 11, 2024.

What is it like growing up in one of the most storied and iconic hotels in Italy? Ask Valentina de Santis, who was raised in the kitchens and ballrooms of Lake Como's Grand Hotel Tremezzo and now runs the charismatic Passalacqua along with her parents nearby. Lale chats with the hotelier to hear stories of life on Lake Como, get tips on traveling in both summer and the off-season, and what it really means to live La Dolce Vita.