WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. A new wave of digital media are putting the public back into public works. Today's technology has paved the way for Bostonians to literally pave the road thanks to iPhone apps and citizens can snap shots of neighborhood nuisances like potholes and email them to City Hall to be fixed and 3D video games are no longer the stuff of home entertainment. But recruiting tools used to lure citizens to community planning meetings. We'll check in with the urban innovators who are using digital media to forge a new era of citizen connectedness. From there it's on to mental spring cleaning and the science behind clearing cranial clutter by way of meditation. We top it all off with Top Chef Masters contestant Jody Adams of reality show up next public participation medical meditation and culinary competition. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Craig Wyndham. Top executives of the BP Oil

Corporation are being grilled by members of a Senate panel looking into the Gulf Coast oil spill. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden is skeptical when the president of BP America Lamar McKay claims the company had a good safety record in the Gulf but is seeking to improve its management structure. Well it gets down to the agenda and the culture of the company and it sure does in the culture of this company is that there's been one accident after another. The agenda has been clear I believe we've progressed a long way. We're not finished will never be hearings on the oil spill are also underway in New Orleans today. NPR's Kathy Lohr reports they're being conducted by a panel of Coast Guard and Interior Department officials. The hearing in New Orleans is an effort to determine the circumstances that led to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The fire that followed the deaths of 11 workers and the subsequent oil spill the ruptured well is still leaking. More than 200000 gallons of crude a day into Gulf waters Coast Guard officials and members of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service are testifying. Meanwhile BP is still trying to cap the well. National Guard

troops using Blackhawk helicopters are dropping enormous sandbags to fill in breaks in the Louisiana shoreline. In an effort to keep the oil out the slick is threatening sensitive wetlands west of the Mississippi Delta. And forecasters say southeast winds will continue and could threaten more fishing and oyster harvesting bayous along the Gulf Coast. Kathy Lohr NPR News Plaquemines Parish Louisiana. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is hosting meetings in Washington today with Afghanistan's president. NPR's Michele Kelemen says the administration is determined to improve relations with the Afghan government. Sitting next to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and at a table with top officials from both countries Secretary Clinton acknowledged some of the differences that have plagued the relationship. But she said the ability to disagree shows there's a high level of trust. She's trying to put relations with the Karzai government on a stronger footing and reassure Karzai of the U.S. commitment. As we look toward a responsible orderly transition in the international combat mission in Afghanistan we will not abandon the

Afghan people. Our civilian commitment will remain long into the future. The U.S. has been urging Karzai to do more to tackle corruption and build up his government's capacity. Karzai has to meet with President Obama at the White House tomorrow. Michele Kelemen NPR News the State Department. Heavy fog and downed power lines are causing problems for rescuers looking for more victims of the violent weather and tornadoes that tore across the southern plain states at least five people were killed. Paul Saunders A spokesman for the Oklahoma governor's office. We have a number of communities damaged many homes destroyed. And the goal right now is just getting aid to the people out in the field and doing search and recovery efforts for those who are missing loved ones. Stocks are holding on to narrow gains on Wall Street the Dow up 62 points. This is NPR News. A barrage of missiles more than a dozen of them fired by a suspected U.S. drone aircraft has killed at least 14 alleged militants in Pakistan today. The attacks occurred in a staging area for insurgent attacks against

U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The foreign ministers of Pakistan and India will meet in July for talks aimed at restarting peace negotiations that have been on hold now for more than a year and a half. NPR's Julie McCarthy in Islamabad reports. Pakistani officials are applauding the announcement as a major step forward in relations between the two countries. In a 30 minute telephone conversation Pakistani foreign minister Shah caress he invited Indian External affairs minister S.M. Krishna to Islam abad for talks. The top diplomats hope to me to work out ways for restoring trust between the two countries. India's suspended dialogue after the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks that implicated Pakistani nationals. A 22 year old Pakistani was sentenced to death by an Indian court last week for his role in the Mumbai rampage. The United States is eager for the two uneasy neighbors to reduce tensions. It wants Pakistan to concentrate on the threat militants posed to its western border with Afghanistan. A U.S. drone strike along that border in North Waziristan

today is reported to have unleashed some 18 missiles on suspected militants. Julie McCarthy NPR News Islamabad. The White House is confirming that Vice President Joe Biden's son Beau is being treated at a hospital in Delaware but. It's not providing any further information about his illness or the treatments. Beau Biden is Delaware's attorney general he returned last year from a year long deployment in Iraq with the National Guard unit. I'm Craig Windham NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation helping NPR advance journalistic excellence in the digital age. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. There's a new wave of digital media from iPhone apps to 3D gaming which are helping to put public back into public works. Joining us to talk about how new technology is forging

a citizen connectedness connect to a second say it is Nigel J fit senior adviser for emerging technologies in the mayor's office and Eric Gordon professor of media arts at Emerson. Eric Gordon is also the developer of a 3-D game called participatory Chinatown which lets residents virtually remake their neighborhood. Nigel Jacobs and Eric Gordon welcome. Thank you. I'm going to start with you Nigel because I want you to tell me what citizens connect is all about and how it works. Citizens connect is an iPhone application a mobile phone application that allows the public to snap some information about. An infrastructure issue that they see whether be a pothole or graffiti or whatever and to enter a little bit information about it where is it. You know what are some. Is there any interesting elements regarding it and then hit send. The real magic of the application is that it's going directly from the phone to the work crew so it's not just becoming email and then going to

City Hall to rattle around somebody's inbox is going directly from the phone to the work crews to be dispatched to the after the user submitted the service request. Their system automatically generate a tracking number for them that they can then use to follow up on the service request so they can call that in or the website that they can check the service request on. And once it's closed out by the Service crews they will get a push notification on your iPhone. Now this started in October of 2009. And you know I have to say I really hadn't heard about it until recently. I think it's great but apparently during the winter some people were using it also to talk about snow removal as well. We've seen a variety of service requests come in. So the majority have been potholes but we see a lot of graffiti just huge about this and we got to say. And frankly that was that was one of the reasons that we started this was you know we're trying to tackle the.

The quality of life issues that we're we're we're hearing from the public when trying to be as as responsive as we can to say you know we were developing tools to enable you to specifically deal with these things and fast as a city respond I know it goes directly to the people who take care of these things but how fast. So it does depend on the type of service requests but for potholes is about less than two days. Oh wow you know I was you know for a city government I have to say is pretty fast. It's pretty good. And the reality is that you know something a system like this only works because the service crews are good at their jobs and are able to get there very quickly and deal with the issues. Now this is just a whole new era of using this kind of technology for as the program suggests to connect citizens. This is something other cities are doing around the country. How did Boston finally get on board. We know Mayor Menino is not an e-mail or a Twitter we're asking so how did it happen. So it's about three or four years ago we were looking at

the city of Boston. Developed a project to support the service requests that were coming in. Right so we have had the mayor's hotline for sixty five forty five hundred for many years very successful. But the challenge is there wasn't any system behind it. Right so the service requests would come in and for the most part they were being written down or just typed into emails to be sent to the service crews to fix them. So we realize that in order to make this a a scale of system a scale solution we had to develop a computer system to support that. So that's what we did we developed the the constituent relationship management system which is on the back end what is issuing to the public. Those take those tracking numbers and so on. So as we were looking at rolling that system out in the it was working really well. You know this is around 2006 to 2007 we were looking at it and saying well now that we've got this great data about how you know the system operates what interesting things can we do with that. Right. And it was pretty quick actually you know to come up with why don't we do an

iPhone app and then. So we kind of thought about it for a while and we went back and forth as you know in terms of the. What platforms should we support. If this is even before Android come out officially and our intention was to actually realize that if we could do a really good job of this we could set a high watermark for these kinds of applications. So we decided to listen to iPhones you know where the top of the line in terms of usability and user interfaces. So when you say android I you know I associate that with Google. Is that what you mean. Right yeah I think the Android based phones. OK very good. Now one of the things that just got announced last week Eric bringing Eric Gordon and professor of media arts at Emerson is a really a broader use of this kind of technology and trying to get citizens connected called participatory Chinatown. And it's all about allowing residents in that area to in a 3D way figure out what they want their community to look like tell us about that. Well the project is a collaboration between myself

and the metropolitan area Planning Council the Asian community development corporation and most Elaine a game developer and so it's a really large project and we got together and and. To set out to change the way the community meetings happen change the way that people are able to provide input and really to do some capacity building within the community before before planners before the city goes to the community and ask for their input. We want to give them another mechanism another format in order to do that. And let's just see that community meetings usually don't draw anybody unless people are mad. That's right. That's right and that's another thing that we really wanted to deal with we wanted to expand the kinds of people that that that go to community meetings and we had our launch on Monday the mean age of the people attending the meeting was 30 and we had over 50 people at this thing and really what that says to me is that. We provide a different kind of platform for engagement

we're going to get a different kind of participant. And so that what the game does is that it allows people to to walk through the streets of Chinatown to play a character other than themselves like an avatar but not quite. Yeah yeah yeah. You see the back of your character's head you're walking through the streets of Chinatown and you're on one of three quests you're either looking for a job looking for a place to live or looking for a social space. And over the course of about 30 minutes walking and collecting ideas we call them cards in the game collecting cards in the game then you're asked to make a decision. Which card is best for your for your player for your character. OK. And and after doing that then we get people to to re-inhabit their own bodies and they get to make decisions about about Chinatown as themselves not as their character and what that does is it provides again instead of going to a meeting and. Being mad and just saying this is what I don't like about what's happening. It actually forces people to kind of get out of their shoes for a little while to see the neighborhood from a different

perspective before being able to state how mad they are and what we found is that it really does change the dynamic of the conversation because now and we ask them to think about you know how this would affect their character. What are the issues that are facing their character jobs lack of green space all these things that are that are that are real that are facing the neighborhood of Chinatown. We get people to think very critically about those things before engaging in their own issues of you know potholes and traffic and all the other things that really bother people on a day to day basis. Let me listeners. I'm wondering if any of you have already used the iPhone application called Citizen connect to connect from the mayor's office and if you would be interested in participating in the participatory Chinatown is that something that you think would be interesting to do. It's a 3-D game after all. Call it 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. What I'm imagining Eric is that you are getting a different to some degree demographic of people who are participating in this 3D game so let's just say it they're

younger. Right. And they're a little probably on the little hip or maybe I don't know. Well I don't know. I don't know about that but certainly younger and one of the things that we did in this process is that the game development process has been about nine months and during that nine month process we invited youth in the neighborhood to participate there's a group called a voice which is a youth youth group that works and works in Chinatown and and they they collaborated with us really in the development of this game so what's interesting is that instead of saying we're going to build something that the young people might like. We actually said let's reach out to young people right away and collaborate with them in building something. They went out into the neighborhood and they interviewed residents of Chinatown and we based the characters in the game on their interviews with actual rape will in Chinatown. They went out and photographed the neighborhood. And then we used their photographs to actually build the 3-D models. China town so I mean they were involved in every step of the process leading to the

game. And then in addition we they were involved when we implemented the game during the meetings as what we called Technology interpreters and that they were in the room and I know that they were helping people out I mean some people didn't even want to touch a computer and that's OK. And because you know you have a 17 year old sitting right next to you. You know I'm going to do it moving the mouse around to do it for you. So it really worked out quite nicely. Ok I'm talking with Eric Gordon he is the developer of a three game call but to support Tory Chinatown which lets residents in that neighborhood virtually remake their neighborhood and he's also a professor of media arts at Emerson and Nigel Jacob who's a senior advisor for emerging technologies in the mayor's office and we're talking about citizens connect. Is this the ideal way to use this kind of technology and reach out. Nigel what's happening with participatory Chinatown. I think so I think this would be ideal. So when we think about the opportunities for technology you know we've So Eric and I talk about this quite a lot. We see

kind of two general trends when we look at the kind of apps that you see on phones in the mobile phone applications and stuff on the web. There's a classification of apps that are mostly about giving people better information. Right which is great. You know better information presumably leads to better decisions at some point. The other side of it is around the issue of engaging in the process the actual messiness of democracy of the participatory process so I think that Eric's model is really interesting in that it gets down into the weeds around how do you actually make this kind of interaction work. I don't know how you get outside of your own thing. Exactly what about the whole community. Right that's right. And I think that you know from my own perspective sort of from within city hall we're very interested in trying to understand how can we develop the next generation of government services of city services and the traditional model has been to you know to make a big system and then roll it out. But that's fraught with issues you

know. You know presumably the on the ground truth can change over time and it's difficult for us to react just given the way that you know going to doctors who will work. So a model like Erik's where it's kind of a human centered design process where you're getting out there and it's high touch and the process that you develop out of that is is in some sense tailored to the community. It's a very interesting model for us and so we're very very interested in seeing where this all goes now. I'm interested speaking of how far it could go is. Just about where you might think how far you were at the limits of this and to that extent I'm thinking about this young kid who was just killed at the basketball court over at Bromley Heath and one of the things that's come out of that is some discussion about should there be more lights. Should there be you know better facilities around for people that if somebody had an app for it straight to the police does this get around the anti snitching thing does it does it help. I mean is that a way that maybe folks

could be a part of a crime solving in a way that's right in the 21st century and also get something done. I think so. I think that one of the interesting elements about apps like systems connect is that it is designed to target the quality of life issues. And this is an area I mean people have a lot of opinions on quality of life issues you know. Is it too is there other Nama Floyds are there you know is there too much parking is there not enough parking and so on. So I think that giving people a way to comment on those things in gauge you know the government or the community at large in figuring out you know what do we do about these things what do we how do we think about this as a group I think that's a pretty a pretty huge area. And where does Boston rank. I mean these three game sounds pretty interesting in this I phone app sounds amazing to me but where does it rank among the other cities who are doing similar kinds of programs Are we late to the party or are we all there together and what do you think that we're.

We're right there on the cutting edge. I think there is a lot of cities. You know San Francisco D.C. Seattle that are doing really great things with mobile phone applications and contests. There are a lot of programs for example like Erik's that are are doing with the other side of the The Open Government movement which is all about the participation. You know that the citizen gave me a piece. And as far as having you know our iPhone application I would I would say is right up there you know there aren't too many other cities that are that have something that can. That kind of works at the level at which ours doesn't have the going right to the back end. So I would say in this area Boston is right up there now. I read somewhere that about twenty five hundred people have responded roughly and probably more in the now. I mean is there a point. I don't have an iPhone so you know see I wouldn't be able to respond but maybe this technology migrates to other platforms that I could also participate. So absolutely. Over the next month in early June we're going to release an android version of the application. OK. So anybody with an Android phone will be able to use it I know

Google has it it will. So Android is a platform that different that runs on different mobile phones. So all of the big carriers talk you know here is how Android phone is so it will spread pretty widely. Part of it really has always been an experiment the sense are people going to be interested in this kind of an application. So we want to roll it out there as quickly as possible. I think people are definitely interested I just think I'm glad to do this conversation with you guys because I don't think people know about it enough. So I hope that this gets more people interested in it. It's been a great conversation and I want to see where it's going to go from here. Cali Crossley we've been talking about using technology to forge a new era of citizen participation. My guests are Nigel Jacobs senior adviser for emerging technologies in the mayor's office and Eric Gordon professor of media arts at Emerson. He's also the developer of a 3-D game called participatory Chinatown which lets residents find creative ways of remaking their neighborhood. Nigel Jacob and Eric Ward thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me.

And coming up it's spring cleaning with a focus on removing cranial clutter by way of mindfulness. We're back after this break stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Sam its Blackstone associates. Brand strategy design and digital media. Thirty years of helping mission driven organizations navigate change. You can follow them on Twitter at s.a.m easy. And from the Massachusetts Freemasons. Who believe that a man's greatness can be measured. And it's not by his wealth or fame. You can learn more at the Massachusetts Freemasons website. Ask a Freemason dot org. And from the 15000 WGBH sustainers who help the station save thousands of dollars by having their contributions of 5 8 or 12 dollars a month automatically renew. Learn more at WGBH dot org. The WGBH annual spring auction is stocked with all kinds of sweet

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course of a fabulous trip to the Berkshires this July 4 full days of music theatre and art. Learn more at WGBH daughterboard slash learning tours. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. There are few rites of spring more satisfying than the annual clean. And joining us to talk about getting the ritual underway in body and mind is Dr. Herbert Benson. He is the director emeritus of the Benson Henry Institute for mind body medicine at Mass General Hospital. He also has a new book which will be heading to a bookstore near you very soon. It's called relaxation revolution. Dr. Herbert Benson welcome. Thank you. It's nice to see you again. Oh nice to see you. Yesterday we had a person on talking about physical spring cleaning. And I asked her I said in the moment that you get your room really clean. Is there an emotional high kind of a spiritual high and she says yes it is but I thought to myself that's in the moment and what you were talking about with your work when you talk about spring cleaning is really something

beyond in the moment can you explain that. Exactly. We're all under stress and stress is so important because it ultimately leads to conditions that are. Our Breen patients two doctors and 60 to 90 percent of those conditions are due that bring people to physicians are stress related. These include anxiety depression insomnia gastrointestinal complaints high blood pressure p.m. mass infertility they're all related to stress and we have capacities within ourselves to do the spring cleaning to do away with the harmful effects of stress. Now you developed many years ago something called the relaxation response which is based on meditation explain to us what that is really the relaxation response is a bodily inborn capacity opposite to that of stress.

Stress evokes what's called the fight or flight response preparing us for running for fighting. And it's brought about by any situation which requires you to adjust and the change is stressful. So it could not only be a. Situation that is real but it could be a situation that you're conjuring up what if situations. What if that pain is an illness what if my child is sick. What if I lose my job what if there's a terror attack. They ALL of Volk the fight or flight response. We don't run. We don't fight. But our bodies are so revved up by adrenalin and cortisol that they have harmful effects that lead to this multitude of the sorters. There are no drugs. There are no surgeries to handle this but we have within us and opposite response called the

relaxation response which you've brought forth regularly can counteract the harmful effects of stress. When you evoke the relaxation response there's the creased metabolism heart rate blood pressure rate of breathing a calmer mind. And there's nothing new about the relaxation response people have been doing it for millennia because the way to bring it about is are two steps. One is a repetition that can be a prayer a word a sound a movement. The other step is when other thoughts come to mind. You say oh well and come back to the repetition. What we have done and that let me just interrupt you say. That's the tough part right there clearing your mind so that you don't get distracted because this is the reason why I can't listen to audio tapes. I'm trying to listen to the audio tape of a book and I start thinking OK what kind of stuff do I need to buy for dinner. You know how do you get to the point where you can really concentrate when you do it on a regular basis.

For example say you chose the word peace you'd sit quietly. Pay attention to your breathing and each breath say the word peace. And Kelly all sorts of other thoughts will come to your mind. They're normal they're natural. But when they come you simply say oh well and come back to peace. It's that simple. And if you don't care about how well you're doing even though you're always showing it. Yeah the whole time you still bring about the physiologic changes of the relaxation response how much practice is it take to get to that point where I can. I'm doing less all well and more thinking. You know in the moment doing what I'm supposed to be doing you will get benefits whether you're doing a lot of oh well or very little you know. Ok I really shouldn't care about how well you're doing it should be akin to for example like brushing your teeth. Okay there's no way you're going to leave your home in the morning without brushing your teeth. But I'd be very surprised if you said it was a could brush

bad brush. You just do it. That's a good point. You know I think it's really important to say that some people listening now may think this is that New Age stuff again the breathing you know all well whatever. You need to make it clear to people that this is really linked to hard science that there is a significant reduction in disease when you do a mental spring cleaning. Exactly. And recent data within the last year have shown that when you evoke the relaxation response there's a change in your genes activity. In other words it's a mind body effect that if what it does is turn off genes and turn on genes that are instrumental in the stress response that are instrumental in a change that are instrumental in for string infections or supporting infections in your body.

Anti-inflammatory. So for the first time we can do away with the concept of oh it's all in your head that it's really not real it's just something you're conjuring up and show that you can change the very building blocks of your every day life and do the spring cleaning on a daily. Around the year basis. Now what I think is important about what you just said is that you can take this with you wherever you go. It doesn't require any equipment and you don't if you get to the point where you are. Just doing the breathing thinking about concentrating you know whatever your phrase is you can do that you can move that around. Thanks Natalie. And to be effective it should be done on a daily basis get up go the bathroom shower and sit quietly for 10 to 20 minutes but you can make it conform to your own belief system because the word can be words like peace love

gentle calm but they can also be religious words and other words if you're Catholic. Hail Mary full of grace. If you are Protestant Lord is my shepherd. If you're a fundamentalist believe Lord Jesus Jewish child home Hindu home. It doesn't matter and it's something that you can learn to do right usually. And if for example sitting quietly is not your thing there are movement ways to bring about is wow. Yoga. Tie chee chee go. They all bring forth the same common response so find something you enjoy and make it a regular habit. It seems to me that in our completely distracted lives I mean I first talked to you about relaxation response some years ago and I thought people were busy then but now it feels like every second you know people are revved up to the extent that you described at the beginning

doing something doing five things at once people can't even drive without talking on the phone or trying to text. So really how much how important is this now to have to really try to gain some control over just a space or a moment in the way that you've described. Kelly it's even more important today for the very reasons you've put out. In other words think of your grandparents. They would set aside every day often to sit quietly and gather themselves. Now our media bring us word of war. Events from around the world whether it's a the instantaneous happening of an explosion of a volcano in Iceland whether it be a terrorist event whether it might be a local financial problem or oil. We learn about it and we're being revved up all the time and erroneous Lih our way of dealing with it is to forget about it

by finding something else that would rev you up that could get your mind off of what's really bothering you. And it's so foolish because our earlier work has shown that a little bit of stress is good because as stress increases so does performance and efficiency but only to a point. More stress you actually become less efficient. So isn't it worth your while to find 10 to 20 minutes once or twice a day which in the long run will increase your efficiency and decrease the harmful effects of stress. It's affection. It's this. This is why this program is so on target. It's a way of recognizing for your spring cleaning that you have this capacity within you. And furthermore you're going to feel better. You'll be less anxious and less depressed. Isn't that worth.

Oh it sounds like a dream right now that people are thinking we're talking with Herbert Benson who is the director emeritus of the Benson Henry Institute for mind body medicine at Mass General Hospital about mental spring cleaning. Now what do you say to people who say OK if I was a little younger I could start this. But I just feel like I can't learn this now. It is that. Is that true. Absolutely not. We teach people who are in their eighth and ninth decades to do this and if one thinks that when you get older you don't have stress. No it's not the case. And people who are older need this as much as people who are younger and they have the same capacities to do these very simple instructions that will break the train of every day thinking through that once or twice and you feel in more control of your problems as the younger and we start as early as preschool really stupid US under Maryland will sure of the education we have an educational

institution. Our children are under enormous stress and that often leads to alcohol too. To drug use to violence we train children to do this throughout the schools they grade point average increases theyre happier and theyre getting tools that they can word to apply the rest of their lives. We're doing this around the world in students were with students now. Can you think of an example in all your years of teaching as in people you've seen at the edge of distraction and stress who've employed the relaxation response and turned their lives around somebody that I mean you've seen you know many examples but I'm just wondering if something someone comes to mind just this morning I was speaking to the co-author of our new book Bill Proctor. He was he was in Texas getting an award at his high school. His brother in law had a newly born child who was in trouble and he was needed medical attention he was frantic. He took him aside taught him

how to evoke the relaxation response for 10 minutes. And what he was able to do was break the train of every day thinking his rate of breathing. My co-author Proctor found drop from sixteen to eight came out of it feeling in control and he happened to use a prayer of being a religious person by doing this thing only it won't do away with this child's problem but he will have the control to listen rationally and help save himself from the harmful effects of that stress. And it can happen immediately. We've had dramatic examples in people suffering from any condition that's caused or made worse by stress whether it be anxiety depression insomnia or other people who otherwise couldn't fall asleep now regularly can do so. Infertile women become pregnant. High blood pressure people a

national studies show shown to decrease their blood pressure up to 10 millimeters of mercury. And in another national study people who have undergone heart attacks who go through our program relaxation response based decrease their subsequent subsequent hospitalization and decrease their mortality rate down then by by 75 percent. Those are real numbers real numbers and real people. Well that is a mental spring cleaning. That we've been talking mental spring cleaning by way of mindfulness with Dr. Herbert Benson Dr. Benson is the director emeritus of the Vincent Henry Institute for mind body medicine at Mass General Hospital. He also has a new book which will be hitting the shelves very soon. It's called relaxation revolution. Dr. Benson thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having a very soothing voice too so that makes it doubly nice. Coming up it's a

conversation with Jody Adams chef and owner of Reale tells. Stay tuned to eighty nine point seven. Coming. Up. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the New England mobile book fair in Newton. For 53 years. New England's independent bookstore. The New England mobile book fair find them online at any book fair dot com. That's an e-book fair dot com and from Huntington Theatre Company presenting prelude to a kiss which explores the power of love and nature of commitment in a breathtaking and life affirming comedy directed by Peter Dubois. May 14th through June 13th. Huntington Theatre dot org.

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Emily Rooney and talking Boston on the Radio weekdays from noon to 2:00 on the new eighty nine point seven. WGBH. I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Kelly Crossley Show. Today we are joined by Chef Jody Adams. She's a contestant on Top Chef Masters and owner of the four star restaurant Reale toe in Cambridge. She's also a James Beard Award winner among many other accolades. We are delighted to have her here. Chef Jody Adams welcome. Well thank you Cal. It's great to be here and out of the kitchen that I should confess to my audience that I am just a serious watcher of Top Chef Top Chef Masters all the food shows I cook and I'm interested in it but I really like those shows and I love Top Chef Masters and I've loved watching you on it. Well thank you very much. I have been really delighted with how interested people

are in the show. I didn't really know anything about it to begin with when I heard. I was actually riding a bike. I was in area poor me. Oh yeah. Riding a bike and I had and I secretly checked my BlackBerry to see you know it's early in the trip and I gotta find out what's going on. And there was an email from the woman that works for me who said Top Chef Masters of call do you have to do it I know you don't do competitions you have to do it this is the best. And I hemmed and hawed and hemmed and hawed and finally my son said if you wimp out now mom it'll be really obvious. So I did it. Oh I've been enjoying it now by my calculation we're going into Wednesday Wednesdays the next episode. You've won three times and you're up to $21000 now. I want to thank you thank you for thinking that now I actually have. I've won twice I've won $17000 for Partners in Health. OK because I mean I could figure out that you had a piece of the team win. So I didn't know if that you know I was trying to calculate what I want out of it.

Yes and I actually in the first episode that I was in won the Quickfire right. And then I had immunity which meant that I didn't even have to place in the elimination challenge but I was determined because if I didn't place first or second that it would be like cheating so I worked my butt off and came in second certainly came in first and then in the next competition it was a team. The wedding challenge the wedding challenge and the elimination challenge the blindfold went yes was was. I team challenge too but in the wedding challenge I won my team won and I won. Within the team so that was $10000 for Partners in Health which I love because it's also going to a local charity that we all appreciate as well. I want to give our listeners a chance to hear your hear the moment in which you won this last time. Jodi the diners gave you. Three and a half stars.

Regulars and here you're the winner and I was reminded that. I didn't get it initially that I had actually because I did I was waiting to hear what I didn't understand at that point that they were actually telling me that I had won the entire elimination challenge and beat out everybody. It took me a minute. And you did well because you made Bananas Foster for this wedding challenge and you never made it before ever. I didn't know what it was. But it's actually yeah. Well first of all it's really sticky I'll tell you that if you're doing Bananas Foster for how many hundred 75 people. It's very sticky. It's butter and bananas and brown sugar and rum and vanilla ice cream and then I thought I can't just do that. So I made some candied pecans to go with it. Yeah. And and we made that really gorgeous wedding cake to say yeah I know I said Yes I saw it all just for people who don't watch the show. The challenge was to prepare for 200 100 guests at a wedding

and each team Jodie's was a blue team had to take on the challenge of either the bride or the groom and I can't remember did you have the brought you that had the bra you had the bright and and they asked for certain things and then other things the chefs just try to improvise a bit and making some beautiful delicious hors d'oeuvres entrees and then dessert. And each side had to make a cake. And your team member made a cake. And what I'm fascinated by with top chefs such as yourself is that most people are not pastry chefs you know and I actually we said oh a wedding cake. All right. Who has a recipe for a cake because also we couldn't have any recipes we couldn't bring any books in with us at all had to be from memory and which I love that I mean it's all about the creative What goes through when you get the challenge what goes through your mind as we see you running around grabbing up stuff and I'm thinking how do I know what to go get because you just found out what you're going to do. Well each one is different depending on what the challenge is the end for the Quickfire challenges. It's immediate like right

away you race around to get equipment and make stuff for the elimination challenge. Typically what happens is there's a shopping event. So we are we were introduced for instance for the for the they called it the wedding wars for the wedding wars that we were introduced to the bride and groom and then we we got to choose which which member of the wedding party we wanted to work with we chose the bride her cuisine seemed a little more interesting and edgy. And then we sat with her for about an hour and. So we had to sort of distill from her what she would like to have. And then the four of us had to put put together a menu. And it was a menu that had to weave together her likes and dislikes our talents and our. And I never have enough people I know for a hundred or something or Oh yeah and. And also we had to think about what's going to be the winner on this because even though we were a team we were competing with each other. That's right.

So there was this very edgy and and I want to let our listeners know that you really took a risk because she said specifically I do not like lamb and you made a lamb dish that you love I don't know what I was thinking. She said she wanted coffee and I thought coffee I can't to talk 24 hours for all these people. So yeah I did take a risk it was what I knew and I knew people would love it. So and she. We had more conversation than what you saw. I'm sure that I sort of brought her around to the idea of lamb but the wedding cake was the challenge was that we had to work as a team to make that cake right even though that was Susan's recipe. We all had to participate in making the cake and then the bride didn't want to cake it all she really didn't want to cake she wanted want a saucer that's right and that's where you were. Now here's what I think is very interesting because you guys are at the top of the I mean there's a reason it's called Top Chef Masters. So I'm guessing that many of you have not been at the level of being in the kitchen running around doing this kind of thing. How does it come back to you or does it or is it like riding a bicycle I was and you remember when I was a sushi chef or lowered this is what you did I mean I don't

know. For me if I was very fortunate because I actually had to be in the kitchen a month before just coincidentally I was actually cooking a lot so I got some of my muscles back. Not all of them. When we when I got into the kitchen I thought I know this. This is familiar but boy I was rusty. It is a little bit however like riding a bike you know you know what you need to do but sometimes your body gets in the way in your mind and it's all the you know doing without thinking is what cooking reheating in the spot at the second wheel which is what I like to watch it. Some people like to watch it purely for the competition. I like to watch it to see how the compare what you're able to come up with creatively given a certain set of ingredients or the moment or the time or the particular challenge. And I find that fascinating. I did too and I loved I loved our blindfold competition it was really a competition where there were four of us three were blindfolded. One person starts out and they can start with any ingredients and they cook for 10

minutes and then the next person comes out and looks at what the first person has created. And you have to kind of leave a roadmap and try to guess what did what did they have in mind. Yeah but the first name of a roadmap sort of clues as to you know where you're going and then the second chef coming on has to interpret that and figure it out. And then it's like the game of telephone by the end of course you know that whatever whatever the final dishes has nothing to do with what they usually what the first person thought of but you have to. And it could because you all have different styles you're all expert in different kinds of arenas. So that's what's interesting to me. I find the interpersonal relationships interesting too and the guy who people are calling Obi-Wan Kenobi though Jonathan I think actually I'm wonderful. It's a fabulous thing I think it must be just for people to get to know you and to raise your profile in some way for others who may not have been to Cambridge and been to real to I haven't it's delicious. Do you return to the restaurant

a different kind of chef now when you're there in between. I know it's still going on and whatever but you know it gave me some wonderful confidence. You know this sort of delightful. Yeah. You're interacting with the public kind of confidence that I hadn't had before. Also doing this thing that was so hard and so challenging and there were so many unknowns and doing as well as I did I loved the camaraderie of all the chefs and I loved being in the production of the television I love process. I love the process of the kitchen I'm still in the kitchen a lot. So I love the process of the TV show as well. The whole thing was great and then it's this wonderful fun story I mean how goofy to go on TV to do this thing and yet I stepped out of you know a part of me thought I had Nischelle I thought too wow I can't do this you know I don't do TV. But then I thought you were taking yourself too bloody seriously. You know step out of that box go and have fun. So I did.

I remember some of the Tom Colicchio said to one of the Top Chef contestants isn't a Top Chef Masters is the guy who won the the first season and he said I don't use those ingredients that's not how I cook. And Tom Colicchio who's the head judge on that show said listen you will cook for the public and you better listen to what the public is interested in I want you. Yeah I'm the public so I love this. Now let's talk about those critics. I was kind of a mom screaming at the TV going you are so wrong and I haven't even tasted it. I just look at Jill they're wrong. How do you feel about they're very very picky. They are very picky but again you have to remember that it's edited for TV. OK. So I mean the hardest part was we had to stand up in front of them and wait to be judged and there's a lot of time you know they want to build the suspense they want to build your anxiety and all that. I have to say that I felt that in the big picture they were fair OK they're smart they've been in the business a long time they know a lot about food. I know what mistakes

I made along the way and they didn't miss a trick. You know in some of the things you didn't even see that they commented on so I do think that. It does seem arbitrary sometimes and it's a matter of taste at times as well so I'm sure that if a different judge was on they might judge somebody soon. Well I think differently but let me shout out to Bravo right now there needs to be more women I miss Yale Simmons whenever she's not around I like Ruth I think she does a good job but there need to be more women judges and I'm happy to see this season on Top Chef Masters more women. Yes. Well they really they know that and they know that it makes for more interesting TV. They were very very conscious about that so you know I think Bravo did a great job. I think it was a lot of fun. Would you do that again or do something like this again or is this enough. I can't imagine I would get it at least something like that again. Really. Yeah I would do it again. I I'm not sure if what exactly I would do. OK definitely something because I think.

Chefs have become very people think of them and very less of a celebrity and you know we some of us take ourselves way too seriously and it's I think it's a way of getting to know actually what's happening in food what's happening in television is really easy for somebody my age. I'm over 50. To say oh no you know I don't need to know about food TV and competitions and things like that because that doesn't have anything to do with what I do which is so important at my restaurant you know. But the truth is is that that's where food is. That's where that's how people are learning about food learning about chefs learning about restaurants so you might as well get into the game and play it as opposed to just staying on the sidelines. Well I can give a personal testimony because I follow Rick Bayless and he won Top Chef Masters last season and I went right to Chicago right to the restaurant and then I asked was he a man in the house he

was he came out we had a little joke. That's what he said. The nicest guy the nicest man and that food is delicious. Yeah it's great so it does really raise your interest in different kinds of foods and I think brings you to the places where the chefs have come from. Yeah I think it's very interesting that he won and I because it's you know it's an American making Mexican beautiful beautiful Mexican food that he has studied so carefully. And you know he's the guy who won. So it's great. The other thing about it the reason that I said yes is because it's the Javits Partners in Health. And how fortunate that with the tragedy that occurred that I chose in Haiti in Haiti right because I chose that charity before the the earthquake and. And Haiti still needs attention and still needs help and support and you know the cameras have gone away. It's true from Haiti and it's they're still struggling and suffering and.

I was at Partners in Health just last week and I can see on Wednesdays their donation their generation graph has this wild spike on Wednesdays it's really exciting to see because of you know the power of TV it's fabulous. Well that is one thing that Bravo had made a decision about this year which is to spend more time explaining the charities of the individual chefs so people really understood them and I thought actually that's a great touch. So I hear you about that. So if you could pick the one thing if you're just praying I hope they pick this so that I can I know I can make it really well in competition. What would it be. Who would it be. I think you would be a summer meal with corn and tomatoes. So striped bass and end up in a party that was outdoors. You never know. Yeah I know. Got a few more. We're down to seven now. Yeah up on Wednesday sevens and still a fair number of women which I'm very pleased about. You're listening Bravo That's my personal view or that's what I

want to see in the kitchen and I love it. I really like the wild variety of chefs this season in terms of is a huge spectrum in terms of the kinds of foods that each of them specialize in. And it's been interesting to me to see when you all worked in teams how all that came together not seamlessly but it certainly came together. That's hard. It is hard. It's hard it's a negotiation too because we all are used to being in charge you know sacrifice some of us the team things I loved the team things that really works for me. But we're all used to being in charge and having people do what we tell them to do. Now they're on each team for bosses you know and there's nobody to boss around because it's only us that we got no help from anybody else. So we had to had to negotiate with each other and say I really want to do this. Well that's really too much like what I'm doing. All right I'll give that up and you do. You know.

To come to something that worked as a cohesive meal. Well and also for people who are listening who have never been to reality I have to say it's fabulous restaurant and what would you suggest that someone dropping by for the first time might have. Well we have a fantastic Gorean menu right now. We changed the focus of it's in it to its original Italian menu using New England ingredients. And every two months we shift the focus there are 20 regions in Italy so we have lots to do. Right now it's Loria which is up in the north western part the Italian Riviera. Beautiful sunny seafood so it's grilled starting with a chick pea tart roasted whole fish with ramps and. And append sauteed which is a little that means pot belly a little ravioli with greens and that sauce sounds fabulous and just like wraps. Oh I have to say it's fabulous to have a wonderful creative chef from our home

town here are in the region doing us proud on national television. We've been talking with Chef Jody Adams owner of the four star restaurant Reale toe and contestant on Top Chef Masters chef Jody Adams thank you for joining us thank you Kelly thanks for having me here and you can catch her on Top Chef Masters on Bravo TV Wednesdays at 10:00. This is the Calla Crossley Show today's program was engineered by Kate Conklin and Alan Madison produced by Chelsea Mertz our production assistants and a white knuckle beat. We're a production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for news and culture.