POLITICS ON THE PLATE: Special Edition of The Q&A Cafe

 

Here's your chance to join the panel event called "Politics on the Plate," organized by Olga Boikess of The Dames D'Escoffier, a Washington-based culinary group that merges Washington and food whenever possible. The event was held at The National Press Club. Olga asked me to moderate and it was a pleasure. The panelists included Maria Trabocchi of Fiola and Fiola Mare; Stephanie Wilkinson of The Red Hen in Lexington, VA; Ruth Gresser of Pizzeria Paradiso; Laurent Menoud of Cafe Milano; Ashok Bajaj of Rasika and Rasika West End; and Amy Brandwein of Centrolina. 

The focus was very simple: how do they keep the peace in their open-door dining dining in this toxic and complicated political era, starting with Wilkinson, who made global news when she asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to please leave her restaurant not long after Sanders and her party sat down for dinner.