Last weekend I was in New York and had an enjoyable lunch with David Rogers-Berry, the drummer for the band O’Death. Over plates of Mexican food in Brooklyn, he told me about how he got into music from an early age and his goals for the band.

There’s much more to David’s story — including a bout with bone cancer, stories from his band travels on the road, and his creative endeavors outside of O’Death. To find out more about all of that, click here or on the picture above to read my interview with him.

A quick update to give a shout-out to British musician Lorraine Bowen (interview #47) who has updated her website with all kinds of bells and whistles. Give it a visit and listen to some of her quirky and catchy tunes.

I can highly recommend a listen to “The Burger Song” which I’ve handily cut-and-pasted below in all its YouTube glory. As I mentioned in my interview with Lorraine, it’s a very fitting song for the times given the scandal in Europe over horse meat cropping up in everything from burgers to IKEA meatballs.

Meanwhile, my 48th interview should be online later this week. Check back before the weekend for a chat with a musician living in Brooklyn.

Sad news out of New York City: former Mayor Ed Koch has died.

In October 2011, I spent an hour or so with Mr. Koch in his corner-room office at the law firm where he worked each day. We shared coffee and cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, and I quizzed him about his tenure as the city’s 105th mayor; his views on present day New York; favorite dining spots; hobbies; and various other topics.

The interview was more formal than the typical meals with strangers, mostly by virtue of it taking place across an office desk, both of us in suits. But it was still an interesting 60 minutes in which I learned plenty about the city and about Mr. Koch.

Earlier this month I was back in England to visit my family. On the way back to the States, I managed to sneak in a dinner with singer and songwriter Lorraine Bowen.

Lorraine is a charming, funny and outgoing woman who writes quirky songs about offbeat subjects, including what goes into a burger patty; an ode to film actress Julie Christie; and plenty more. And she gave an impromptu performance after dinner!

Click on the picture above or right here to learn all about Lorraine.

A new year has started and my resolutions success rate is already spotty at best.

I’ve already done one dinner interview in 2013, part of what I hope will be a fulfilled goal of completing more than the five interviews from 2012. But I’ve also not started on transcribing it even though it was more than a week ago, signaling that my resolution to more quickly turnaround articles is off to a shaky start.

Oh well. There’s another 11 months to try improving.

Still, the first interview of the year will be online this month — and as an added bonus it will feature a musical number or two. Woohoo!

Meantime I have updated my travel plans for 2013, so check out where I’m heading between now and December. If you live in one of those locations and want to sit down to dinner for an interview then simply send me a meal request.

Merry Christmas to this site’s handful of readers!

I’m flying back to England for the holidays and won’t be updating Dining With Strangers until early next year. So you can stop feverishly clicking “refresh” in the hope that a new interview will suddenly appear. That’s my festive gift to you.

As I don’t have anything new to put up for the next couple of weeks, I’ll leave you with my interview from last December with Ed Downey. He’s in demand at this time of year because he’s a professional Father Christmas. In addition to his work as Santa Claus, Ed had plenty of stories to tell from a number of other interesting careers he’s experienced.

Have a great Christmas and happy new year!

A few months ago I mentioned a fundraising project for “Good Taste & Gatherings,” a web-based documentary series bringing people who like good food together to share a meal. Sadly, the organizers never reached their target.

However, they pushed ahead with the project and yesterday released the first pilot video from the series. It features two people designing a “unique potluck experience” for the launch of Darling magazine’s first print issue.

2012 was what I will generously describe as a year of sporadic updates for Dining With Strangers. I went several months between some interviews.

Despite the infrequent articles, it was an interesting year and I got to meet some people and learn about careers I’d never otherwise have experienced. Presented in handy bullet-point format — and mostly because I have nothing else to update the site with at the moment — here are the strangers I met over the past year:

• Marketing communications executive Rozanne Weissman
• Cartoonist Ben Claassen III
• English literacy tutor Kay Cameron
• Out gay porn star Antonio Biaggi
• Visual artist Katelan Foisy

Woohoo, a new interview is finally online!

The last interview I posted was in July, so let’s just say I’ve been slow-walking my efforts with this website. After all, it’s not my day job and taking people out to dinner can get expensive. But enough of that, on with the new article.

A few weeks ago I sat down to breakfast with Katelan Foisy, a visual artist living and working in New York City. From working with tarot cards to painting and from modeling to making herself crazy on purpose, she had plenty to talk about.

I launched Dining With Strangers four years ago today.

Back then I had precisely zero interviews planned other a lunch with my friend Joe, where we came up with the idea for the site. At least, I’m going to claim I was 95% of the inspiration for site, he just provided the 5% of mockery.

Since that time I’ve met some genuinely nice people that I’ve stayed in touch with — for example, on visits to New York City I can call on Cuban singing sensation Margarita Pracatan for fun conversation, plenty of wine and some attempts at singing. Then there’s the circus clown in Los Angeles whose Facebook updates always put a smile on my face. And there’s the writer who won my friendship by getting me intoxicated before a flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. and keeping me laughing throughout dinner. He’s since moved to Germany but we keep in touch by email.

Others I’ve met just for the interviews are interesting folk with careers I’d never otherwise have been educated on: a voodoo priestess, a tattoo artist, Santa Claus, a tightrope walker and many others. It’s been a great experience so far.

The only interview I’ve done on my actual birthday was in 2010, when in mid-July I sat down for lunch at the apartment of gay-for-pay porn star Malachi Marx. It’s one of the longest interviews — mostly as we spent many hours talking compared to the usual hour or less for these interviews, and also prompted the most backlash in the comments section. But whatever anyone might think of Malachi (which you might guess is not his real name), I’m still grateful for the improvised birthday cake that he and his girlfriend made for me.

Overall, I’ve had a lot of fun.

To the handful of loyal readers on this little-visited website: thank you for reading and please continue to visit.

When I started this site I traveled a lot more for work than I do now, so the regularity of interviews has decreased. But I’m still looking to take interesting strangers to dinner, and despite recent lies by myself to the contrary, the 46th article is on its way. After that’s online, I don’t have anything coming until 2013, but I’m already reaching out to potential interviewees for next year.

Here’s to another four years.