favorite PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) programing?

I grew up before it existed and then we lived off grid for a total of 13 years so no tv.
Later the rural town we lived near had a tower though so during the nineties, when my mom lived with us, we had a tv with rabbit ears and great reception and watched a lot of masterpiece theater and other series..and the News Hour.
I was doing a lot of finishing hand work for my weaving projects so watched some programs while working.

Have not had a tv since but we check out dvd's from the library, mostly BBC mysteries and historical dramas presented on pbs.

Our boys missed out on Mr. Rogers but their kids, our grandkids, watched it growing up and other good programming like Sesame Street.  

We loved Austin City Limits!!!
along with other excellent music programing.

Cooking and baking shows!
America's Test Kitchen, Pati's Mexican Table, and Cook's Country are some of my favorite public programming.

My window of tolerance (screens specifically and stimulation in general) is generally narrow by default, and these low-drama, low-/medium-energy, informative shows are GREAT. Hooray for stable camera work!

I think Jamie Oliver provides great info and more or less approachable recipes, but he's high-energy! I like his shows in smaller doses.

I find BBC's Escape to the Country equally calming, as well as fascinating. Getting a glimpse of  UK's "aged" buildings and interiors (which are usually much older than the US's "aged" buildings!) is a treat.

Many years ago I loved to listen to Woman Alive on KAXE radio.  I think it was out of Hibbing, MN.

Oh my goodness PBS!  When I was young I liked the children's programming, and at about 9 I began discovering the joys of documentaries.  I love the documentaries and science and history programming to this day, many happy hours spent learning and gobbling up knowledge.  And I do occasionally watch the British dramas, Indian Summers is one of my fave shows of all time, I own both seasons on DVD.

I grew up loving NOVA and also would wake up early before anyone else in the house and watch an art show where you drew with the artist, mostly wildlife.  I wish I could remember the name of that program.

Now I watch mainly cooking shows.  I adore "Kitchen Vignettes", a farm to table shorts program that's filmed not too far from me, and "Trails to Oishii Tokyo" which gives me a wonderful window into the growing and use of many Japanese perennial vegetables that I grow but otherwise don't really know enough about to fully enjoy.  This past weekend they had a show on Fuki which caused me to run outside, break through a snow crust and harvest Fukinoto, the just emerging unopened flower buds of fuki.  I got to enjoy them for the first time as I had always waited a bit too long when their flavor is overpowering.  In this episode a Japanese farmer points out one at the stage I used to harvest them and says "too late!"    Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Kitchen Vignettes site
Trails to Oishii Tokyo - Fukinoto episode

Kitchen Vignettes is where I learned to lactoferment sunchokes!

Thank you for this thread.  Because of it I found a new PBS cooking show, "Pan Pals".  So fun!

How could I forget Tom and Ray from Car Talk?!? Two funny, funny guys.
Tom (the bearded one) died in 2014.




Here's a history of the show, in their own words.

I love(d) the woodwright's shop, this old house, ask this old house and the new yankee workshop