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Rand Paul is not like other potential presidential candidates.

The Kentucky senator, who is expected to announce his candidacy for the White House Tuesday morning, doesn't fit neatly into the molds of either party.

Socially liberal on issues of crime and punishment — especially when it comes to drug sentencing — against a federal ban on same-sex marriage, and no foreign policy hawk, he's not your prototypical Republican.

A fiscal conservative, but anti-abortion rights, he's certainly no Democrat, either.

"It's time for a new way, a new set of ideas and a new leader," Paul says in a web video, with a heavy metal soundtrack, previewing his soon-to-be presidential campaign.

Paul fits more with Libertarians. And, though he is the scion of the last carrier of the torch of "liberty," he's also not quite his father's Libertarian.

Paul's father, the former congressman Ron, ran for president three times before retiring. The elder Paul, 79, was always regarded as something of a gadfly, an outspoken fresh voice in the Republican primary with an ironic following of young Libertarians.

Though Paul did not win a single state in 2008 or 2012, when measured by Election Day voting percentage, he routinely finished in the top three. In fact, he finished a solid second behind Romney in the critical early state of New Hampshire.

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Supporters of Sen. Rand Paul's cheer as he speaks during CPAC. Carolyn Kaster/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Carolyn Kaster/AP

Supporters of Sen. Rand Paul's cheer as he speaks during CPAC.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

But his band of young, engaged and determined Paul-ites proved one thing — they could organize. Ron Paul not only won straw poll after straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference and elsewhere, he also won the most delegates in several states, including Iowa. Though Paul finished third in vote total in the Hawkeye State, his campaign engineered what amounted to a takeover of the state Republican Party apparatus.

"He has a number of assets," said Stu Rothenberg, founder of the Rothenberg Political Report. "He has terrific fundraising potential. He has an army of supporters who will run into a burning building to vote for him."

Rand Paul has tried to use those supporters to help build on his father's foundation, reaching out to minority voters with an emphasis on criminal justice reform and to young audiences — like one in New Hampshire last year — with an appeal based on privacy and civil liberties.

"How many people here have a cellphone?" Paul asked. "How many people think it's none of the government's damn business what you do on your cell phone?"

That brought rousing applause.

"If I had to fill a large lecture room at my campus, I would bet a lot that Rand Paul could fill that room with young Libertarian-minded conservatives," said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. "Of that I have little doubt."

Though Rand Paul can fill a room with young Libertarians in similar ways that his father could, he isn't a carbon copy of his dad. Paul has adjusted some of his policies to slightly more fit the mainstream of the GOP.

Paul has emphasized where he agrees with evangelical Christians on gay marriage, telling a group of pastors last month that the First Amendment says keep government out of religion, not religion out of government. And, in moves that show he understands the GOP has returned to its hawkish roots since the rise of the Islamic State militant group, he has changed his tune on Defense spending, proposing $190 billion more for the Pentagon, and the second day of his presidential rollout finds him in South Carolina — in front of the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Yorktown.

Those moves toward the mainstream of the party may lose Paul some die-hard Libertarians, but, says David Boaz of the Cato Institute, most Libertarians are thrilled.

"I think Rand Paul is the most Libertarian major presidential candidate that I can remember seeing," said Boaz, who's new book is called, "The Libertarian Mind," "so it tells you that there is a constituency that wants this more Libertarian approach."

Boaz sees Paul's adjustments as necessary and practical.

"Rand Paul is trying to find a balance that reflects his own views and appeals to a plurality and eventually the majority of the party," Boaz said. "To the extent that there is that constituency — skeptical of foreign intervention, skeptical of the surveillance state — he has that market in the Republican Party all to himself. Is it a big enough market? Well, that's what he's about to find out."

Paul's anti-establishmentarian campaign slogan for 2016 will be, "Defeat the Washington Machine; Unleash the American Dream."

That little rhyme invokes the crusading Paul raging against the "security state" on the floor of the U.S. Senate in an old-fashioned, 13-hour filibuster two years ago. But if the goal for Rand Paul in 2016 is to emerge as the anti-establishment alternative to, say, Jeb Bush, Paul has to become more than just the Libertarian candidate, Scala said.

"He has to find a way to be more appealing to the mainstream of New Hampshire Republicans while keeping his appeal to his core vote, which I would describe right now as people who voted for his dad three years ago," Scala said. "That's the trick for Rand Paul."

Paul, like his father's online "Money Bombs," will likely be able to raise enough money to stick around for quite some time in the GOP primary. Analysts like Rothenberg are skeptical he will be able to pull off the improbable and become the Republican nominee, but Rothenberg wonders if Paul is laying the groundwork for a sea change within the party.

"He may be starting a process that down the road will change the Republican Party, will start to bring in some new kind of faces into the Republican Party," Rothenberg said. "And I wouldn't be surprised if in six or 10 years, this is a more Libertarian party."

2016 Presidential Race

Rand Paul

Republicans

Traditionally, the liquified foods marathoners choke down in the middle of a race have been limited to some pretty basic flavors: lemon-lime gel, vanilla goo, chocolate mystery substance.

No more! Clif has introduced pizza-flavored energy paste.

We tried it while competing together in an ultramarathon this weekend (this entire sentence is a lie).

Ian: It's like an IV bag for someone suffering from too much happiness.

Eva: If my wisdom teeth grow back and I have to get them removed again, I won't have to take a break from pizza this time.

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Robert looks before he tastes. NPR hide caption

itoggle caption NPR

Robert looks before he tastes.

NPR

Robert: Finally, a cure for the Passover pizza craving I suffer from every year!

To be fair, this stuff is designed for endurance athletes. See, it's specially formulated to punish people who won't stop talking about their marathon.

Eva: This'll be great for refueling during my couch triathlon!

Ann: I'm not a marathoner, but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to induce vomiting while running.

This is food. NPR hide caption

itoggle caption NPR

Ian: Yes, Liquid Pizza. Because you should trust the choices of people who choose to run ultramarathons.

The ingredients listed include Organic Carrot Puree, Organic Quinoa, and Organic Sunflower Seed Butter, just like real pizza.

Eva: This is the gel they use for ultrasounds if you're pregnant with a pizza.

Ian: How could something that combines my love of pizza with my love of drinking be so terrible?

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Robert tries another approach. NPR hide caption

itoggle caption NPR

Robert tries another approach.

NPR

Robert: I usually have to drink a whole lot more to bring pizza back looking like this.

[The verdict: At their best, energy gels are not good. This is far from the best.]

Sandwich Monday is a satirical feature from the humorists at Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!

sandwich

Ask her if she still remembers the Olive Garden birthday song and she'll enthusiastically jump into song.

"I started off as a hostess and you get to wear — get to, or have to, it depends how you want to look at it — but you wear a salad tie," she says. "So they actually took that salad that everybody gets at the Olive Garden and put it on a tie that you get to wear at the host stand."

She says people would wait up to two hours for a table there.

"People were really excited for the never-ending salad bowl and the never-ending breadsticks," she says.

Izard says the Olive Garden helped to reignite a childhood passion for food. After working there, she went to the Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Arizona and later moved to Chicago.

"I knew it was a good food city," she says.

One of the cooks at a restaurant she worked at saw her potential in the food business, and suggested she try to open her own restaurant.

"Not really thinking about things too much, I just quit my job," Izard says. "About a year later, [I] opened my own restaurant."

It was called Scylla. She says it was very hands-on: Her dad built the host stand, and her mom and sister made the menus.

"At the time, [we] just kind of went for it and figured everything out as we went," she says.

Izard says she worked 16-18 hour days. Not only was she managing the restaurant, but she was doing every other task.

"There was just a couple episodes where I was fainting at work," she says. "I think I was just exhausting myself by doing everything that I was doing."

Izard needed a break. After a few years, she sold her restaurant, planning to leave the restaurant industry for a while and do some traveling.

"I was turning over the keys in about two weeks and Top Chef called," she says.

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Izard was crowned the prestigious title of Bravo's "Top Chef" during the TV show's 4th season finale. Richard Blais, left, and Lisa Fernandes, right, were also finalists. Rafael Pichardo/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Rafael Pichardo/AP

Izard was crowned the prestigious title of Bravo's "Top Chef" during the TV show's 4th season finale. Richard Blais, left, and Lisa Fernandes, right, were also finalists.

Rafael Pichardo/AP

After her first interview for the TV show, some producers visited her restaurant for dinner.

"And I wasn't allowed to tell my staff who they were. I'm like, 'Oh these are my new friends from LA that I just met. Let's bring them to the bar,' " Izard says. "Wined and dined them and just schmoozed a bit."

Izard then went to Los Angeles for the final casting call.

"You do a little interview with a psychologist to make sure you're crazy enough to be entertaining, but not too crazy, because there's knives everywhere," she says. "And then they put you in the middle of the room and start shooting questions at you to kind of watch you sweat and see how you handle the pressure ... You're just kind of wondering, 'What in the heck did I just get myself into?' "

"You do a little interview with a psychologist to make sure you're crazy enough to be entertaining, but not too crazy, because there's knives everywhere."

- Stephanie Izard on the audition for "Top Chef"

Season 4 of Top Chef was full of dramatic competitions and impossible challenges, like baking a wedding cake.

"I think I blocked some of it out of memory," Izard says. "The ones where I didn't do so well, I just kind of crossed those off."

But by the end of the season, she was one of three finalists. And in the finale, host Padma Lakshmi delivered the news: Stephanie Izard became the first woman to win Top Chef.

"Definitely Top Chef I would say is my big break. As much as I used to always want to say it was not," Izard says. "I think whether you win or however you do on the show, you can take it for so many opportunities that come your way ... I can't wait to see what else is going to happen."

We want to hear about your big break. Send us an e-mail at mybigbreak@npr.org.

Olive Garden

Chicago

Oh, those goats? I got them from Amazon!

The online giant is testing out a "Home Services" line. You can get a TV mounted on your wall. You can find a plumber. And you can rent a herd of goats to chomp on unwanted vegetation in your yard.

Goats In The City? Making A Case For Detroit's Munching Mowers June 18, 2014

I typed my Maryland zip code into "Hire a Goat Grazer." Sorry, "no providers available." It turns out that Amazon is wrangling goats only in the Seattle area right now, although a spokesman promises that more cities will be added.

As a goat admirer and editor of a blog called "Goats and Soda," I wanted to learn more about the grazing habits of goats — especially their alleged immunity to poison ivy. For enlightenment, I turned to Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, professor of crop science and animal science at North Carolina State University.

Why are goats not allergic to poison ivy?

We don't really know.

Do you have any theories?

If you look at the world population of goats, which is about 937 million, 95 percent of them are within the tropics, north and south of the equator. So they evolved in very arid areas and basically had to survive on plants that contained noxious compounds. So goats evolved this ability to detoxify noxious compounds much better than cattle or sheep [can]. I think that's one of the reasons.

If a goat ate poison ivy, could I catch poison ivy from that goat's milk?

Some people have had concern that whatever compound [a goat ate] would be passed into the milk. But it's not.

And just to confirm: cattle and sheep might get sick from a plant that wouldn't bother a goat.

When you look at books that talk about poisonous plants to livestock, a lot of the data are from cattle or sheep. If you see goats eating pokeweed and say, "Wait a minute this is a poisonous plant [to livestock]" – it doesn't affect goats.

So bring on the goats!

Here in North Carolina I have done work to clear up pastures and an abandoned orchard. We used goats, and they did a wonderful job getting rid of all the invasive vegetation: broadleaf weeds, woody perennials like greenbrier, honeysuckle, black locust, multiflora rose. We have cleared areas full of kudzu [an incredibly invasive vine native to Asia]. We grazed several plots about six times from early June to early October and basically got rid of the kudzu. Maybe 3 percent of it grew back the next year. But if you want to get rid of plants with goats, you have to start early in the spring and [have the goats] defoliate everything, get rid of all the leaves. So the plant has to use root reserves to make the first leaves. And if you do that over and over, these plants spend all of their root reserves and cannot grow anymore.

But I guess you do have to be careful that goats won't eat plants you like.

If you leave the goats there all the time maybe they will be a little hungry and if they don't have any green matter to eat, they will start to debark trees because they know the sap is under the bark. They will kill trees. That's good or bad, depending on the trees.

Can any plant harm a goat?

A lot of ornamental plants are poisonous to goats. Piedmont azalea are not going to necessarily kill goats unless they eat a lot but would make them really sick and throw up. Once they have that experience they would stay away from these plants.

There are a lot of goats in the developing world. Do people there use goats to clear unwanted vegetation?

In Africa they don't use goats to clean a pasture. But they do use the boughs of whatever woody shrubs are around to feed their goats.

Do goats eat tin cans?

Naw, it's just a joke. They are very curious. And so they are going to try to eat a lot of things that we see as crazy. But even when they see a piece of plastic they are not going to eat it. They just take it in their mouth and spit it out.

So no to plastic. What about paper?

We had a student working in one of the pastures at a little station where we used to record temperature, soil moisture, wind speed in a notepad. The student put the notepad down to do something with one goat. When she turned around, one month of data had disappeared! She thought she would be fired on the spot. We laughed so hard.

goats

Amazon