Interviewing strangers over a meal since 2008 (as featured in the Washington Post)
Do you have an interesting life story? Want a free meal? Join me for dinner! If you’re interested, it’s pretty simple — just meet with me at a restaurant of your choice for a relaxed interview where you tell me about your interesting life/career/hobby/invention/whatever. I’m based in the DC but…
The 16th dinner interview was my afternoon tea in December 2009 at Alice’s Tea Cup in Manhattan talking with New Yorker Teresa Suarez, learning about her side career selling sex toys and other adult products — just one of her three jobs. An unlikely setting for an adult-themed conversation, but…
Here’s the 15th Throwback Thursday: Dinner in New York at Tony’s DiNapoli with actor Jack Fry back in December 2009. Before we met, I saw his one-man show “They Call Me Mister Fry” which tells the true story about his first year as a teacher at a high school in…
Artist Jonathan Blum, a portrait painter featured on this site as the 101st dinner stranger, has just announced the shows where he’ll be presenting his unique works in the coming months. If you live in either New York or Washington, DC, I can highly recommend trying to meet Jonathan; his…
Throwback Thursday 14 is to one night in November 2009, and dinner in DC at Dupont Circle’s Thaiphoon with Michael Chamberlin. He has two jobs: magician and theater director, including through his own theater company. He spent equal time talking about his love of the stage, including and about the…
Actresses Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery, featured on this site in the 116th Dining With Strangers interview, tour occasionally with a cabaret show of humor and music called “Two Lost Souls” — and it’s coming to Minneapolis this Friday May 3. When we met, they talked about how they first…
Meet Mikko Kosonen, he’s a chef from Finland now living in Washington, DC, who divides his time between operating his busy catering company and his namesake restaurant Mikko. We met earlier this month for dinner at his establishment for my 118th interview. Mikko talked about why he wanted to bring…
Throwback Thursday 13 (unlucky for some) was the second interview during my August 2009 trip down to New Orleans. I had a fun lunch at the fantastic restaurant Bayona with Buzzy “Beano” Langford, a member of the long-running and popular New Orleans-based cover band The Topcats. He talked about what…
Artist Leslee Melamed, who was the 76th dinner stranger along with her husband actor Fred Melamed, has launched a website featuring some of her work. Here’s how she describes it: “On canvas, she is associated with the bold use of texture and judicious color. Early influences were Mark Rothko and…
Throwback Thursday 12 is my August 2009 dinner with Jerry Gandolfo, owner of the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, at The Court of Two Sisters in the French Quarter. We had a interesting talk about how Jerry got involved in preserving voodoo’s story, even though he’s not a practicioner. You…