Taking strangers to dinner and interviewing them about their lives since 2008
Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery are back on the road to sing some songs. The hilarious actresses, featured together as the 117th dinner interview back in January 2019, have known each other for decades and turned their love of singing into some live shows — and they’ll be performing them…
Apologies for the dearth of updates since March, but Dining With Strangers is still on hold. At the start of the pandemic, I suspended my project of meeting strangers for meals at restaurants to interview them about their life stories — an idea at odds with lockdowns and social distancing….
Chef Deborah VanTrece, the 131st dinner stranger and owner of the restaurant Twisted Soul Cookhouse & Pours in Atlanta, is hosting a virtual launch party at 6pm on Tuesday March 16 for “The Twisted Soul Cookbook: Modern Soul with Global Flavors.” “I’ll be cooking up a few recipes from the…
The 80th dinner interview was a reunion with several strangers in New Orleans. In September 2015, roughly one decade after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, I met with three long-time residents of the Crescent City who have previously been featured on Dining With Strangers, hosting a group meal at Antoine’s. In…
Medium Rare, the DC-based steak frites restaurant owned by the 114th dining stranger Mark Bucher, is planning an East Coast expansion. Mark told the Washington Business Journal this week that he’s looking to Baltimore as the next location for the restaurant, which offers diners a simple set menu of salad, freshly…
The 79th Throwback Thursday dinner happened in August 2015, when I met Barbara Crocker at the French restaurant Le Diplomate in DC. Barbara had just celebrated her 62nd birthday that month, but during the interview she told me she feels like she’s getting younger every year with her busy schedule…
Merry Christmas! If you’re looking for something festive to watch online today, check out “A California Christmas” on Netflix. In the film’s credits you’ll see that the cinematography was done by Brad Rushing, the 94th dinner interviewee. I met Brad, who lives in Los Angeles, when he was on a…
Here’s the 78th Throwback Thursday interview: July 2015 dinner with Meredith Denbow at Jyoti Indian Cuisine in DC. Since moving to Washington, DC, a few years ago, Meredith has been working to grow a local branch of Fuckup Nights. The unusually named organization hosts seminars across the globe where people…
Given that I’ve put dinner interviews on hiatus until the coronavirus pandemic is over, there won’t be a festive-themed meal with a stranger this year like my December 2011 dinner with Santa Claus. Instead, I wanted to post something in memory of my late friend and former interviewee Margarita Pracatan….
Continuing the throwbacks to prior interviews in order, here’s the 77th interview which took place in June 2015. Jenny Wang was born in China but spent her childhood in Connecticut and rural Pennsylvania, before moving to the District of Columbia to work in public relations. During dinner at Marrakech in…