After four years and almost 100 first dates, Craig Schattner is still single. So he decided to try and answer the question of whether the inability to find a long-term girlfriend stems from a problem with him, or with the District of Columbia where he lives. Craig — an experience…

Jacki Barnett never intended to be a fashionable fundraiser. But after her best friend Christy passed away from brain cancer at age 33, Jacki and two other friends launched a fashion-focused charitable organization in Christy’s honor. In Christy’s Shoes hosts shoe fashion shows to raise money that the group then…

Maryland resident Dr. David Sherer has fond memories of the African American maid Louise that helped raise him as a child. But the two lost contact in the 1980s. A few decades later, David decided that he needed closure and wanted to reunite with Louise — and to chronicle his…

Gary Krist is a New York Times best-selling author whose latest book, Empire of Sin, is a work of historical non-fiction chronicling New Orleans in the early 1900s. It’s a fascinating story about the battle for the modern city, played out mostly in the notorious Storyville district where prostitution and…

For more than 30 years, Jean Bishop has dressed up in an eye-catching bumblebee costume as a way to gain attention for her fundraising efforts for Age UK, a British charity that offers a host of services to the country’s elderly. Her sunny demeanor and energetic, award-winning fundraising efforts —…

My 68th dinner is now online! This is my meal with Caecilia Kay. She’s a single mother living in Maryland with a dream of one day being a communications and public relations professional. She’s on medical disability at the moment, so trying to find the right balance between coping with…

Brobson Lutz moved to New Orleans decades ago to study medicine at Tulane University, and has stayed ever since. For years he’s lived in the French Quarter, enjoying the sights, sounds, and tastes of everything that the Big Easy has to offer. With a Southern drawl and an easygoing charm,…

Click here or on the picture below for part two of my two-part interview with character actor and storytelling writer Stephen Tobolowsky, which took place at a diner in Los Angeles. In the first part, Stephen shared anecdotes about his extensive acting career. In the second part, he describes how…

Stephen Tobolowsky knows how to tell a story. And he’s got many of them to share. The character actor — perhaps best known for his role as overbearing insurance salesman Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day — was happy to talk during a lengthy breakfast last month in Los Angeles. In…

If you’ve seen the television show Glee, or any of Christopher Guest’s fake documentary comedies, or pretty much any big TV show or movie in the last few decades, then you’ve seen Michael Hitchcock’s work as an actor and writer. Michael, who lives in Los Angeles, is currently hard at…