Kevin Murphy is a college student in Idaho who stutters. Using the power of radio editing, he and the production staff of This American Life removed his pauses, stutters and repeats so that he could record a message the way it seems the rest of the world would like to hear him sound.

To end this show about parents and children at mealtime, a story about what happens when children have to become the parents. Dave Eggers' mother and father died when he was 21 and his brother Toph was 8.

Dishwasher Pete, author of the book Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States, went to the National Restaurant Association convention on assignment from This American Life.

The story of two young people who, in their search to figure out who they were, pretended to be people they weren't. Both were from small towns; both took on false identities.

When is a chicken your friend? When is he your dinner? TAL's former webmeister Elizabeth Meister talks with Kamiko Overs, an 11-year-old girl at the annual poultry exhibition run by the American Poultry Association in Columbus, Ohio.

When is a chicken your friend? When is he your dinner? This American Life's former webmeister Elizabeth Meister talks with Kamiko Overs, an 11-year-old girl at the annual poultry exhibition run by the American Poultry Association in Columbus, Ohio. Elizabeth Meister is a producer with Long Haul Productions.

A story by Cheryl Trykv, read by the author in front of a live audience at The Hothouse, illustrates what it means when the sinner makes no attempt to seek forgiveness.

Lisa Carver's nine-year-old son, Wolfgang, was born with a rare illness that, among other things, makes it impossible for him to eat anything by mouth. He's fed through a g-tube, straight into his stomach.

Every week, Chelsea Merz has lunch with a homeless man named Matthew, in the same restaurant. Matthew's been on the street for seven years, but once or twice a year, he housesits for a friend.

A story by Jay Allison and Annie Cheney, from Jay's Life Stories series. Annie tells a story of eating and not eating, and a life seen through one meal.

Sean Cole visits Chad's Trading Post in Southampton, Massachussetts. One person who works there wears a shirt that says "Chad's Brother;" other shirts say "Chad's Best Friend," "Chad's Cousin," "Chad's Father." Pictures of Chad are everywhere.

Ira meets the workers of the Wiener Circle; they're screaming and cursing at each other, and the customers, and they actually seem really happy. And then we meet some of the customers.

In order to make foie gras — goose liver — the birds have to be treated inhumanely, strapped down and force-fed huge amounts of food. So when a chef named Dan Barber heard about Eduardo Sousa, a Spaniard who had supposedly found a way to make foie gras without mistreating the animals, Dan didn't believe it ... until he went to Spain to investigate.

Food writer Jonathan Gold tells what it's like to panfry a chicken—with a live chicken watching you the entire time.

When you're powerless, you think a lot about the powerful figures above you. Especially when their actions just make no sense.

What happens when a chicken crosses the thin yellow line that divides the animals we eat from the animals we keep as pets. Jonathan Gold, food writer for Gourmet magazine, tells how he accidentally came to adopt a chicken, and what happened to his opinion of chickens afterwards.

What if you asked people for advice and actually took all the advice that everyone gave you? As an experiment, writer Sarah Vowell tried exactly that, when she recently solicited advice from many different people about insomnia.

Food writer Jonathan Gold tells what it's like to panfry a chicken—with a live chicken watching you the entire time.