Matt Yee needs your help. The exuberant entertainer, for decades a fixture on cruises around the world, is currently battling liver cancer. Matt was the 96th stranger interviewed for this site, and we met at a restaurant on a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean Sea back in January 2017….

Until the day when I resume dinner interviews with people across the United States and even overseas, I’ll provide some updates on news of interest about some of the 131 people I’ve already met. Today’s post is about actor Fred Melamed, the 76th interviewee on Dining With Strangers and easily…

The other week, Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema invited me to tag along for a review of Gordon Ramsay’s new fish and chip shop (creatively titled Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips) at The Wharf in D.C. The review was a chance to share my thoughts on the best way…

Actor/writer Jim Piddock, star of almost countless plays, television shows and movies — including Christopher Guest’s “Best In Show” — is baring all. In his new autobiography, “Caught with My Pants Down”, he dishes on his lengthy career and journey from England to Hollywood. Jim was the second interview on…

Had to come out of semi-hibernation to note a well-deserved award for Chef Frank Brigtsen. Frank is the owner of Brigtsen’s restaurant in New Orleans, where I met him for a dinner interview back in September 2017. It’s a local landmark and consistently one of the best reviewed restaurants in…

Happy 2022! Thank you to everyone who keeps checking on this site or stumbles upon it. Sadly, the dinner interviews are still on hold due to a number of complications (new job, old pandemic, and more) but hopefully one day I’ll get to finally do the 132nd meal with a…

Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery are back on the road to sing some songs. The hilarious actresses, featured together as the 116th 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 130th 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…