Ranch to Table:
A Gastrodiplomacy for the People Dinner
April 24, 2026
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Eames Ranch
1251 San Antonio Rd
Petaluma, CA
Presented in partnership with
Food is one of the most powerful forms of diplomacy.
The Gastrodiplomacy Dinner Series
Gathering around a dinner table to share delicious, nutritious food from across the globe is one of the most powerful forms of international relations. Often, we learn more from the stories told around a shared table than from textbooks or lectures that take place in the world’s greatest classrooms.
GDFP DINNER SERIES 001
The Ranch to
Table Dinner
4/24/26 • PETALUMA, CA
Join us for an evening filled with amazing food cooked on the land, stories that transcend borders and span generations, and a growing community of kind, inspiring humans.
“Ranch to Table” is inspired by Chef Pierre’s collaboration with the Eames Institute as one of its inaugural Artists in Residence. At the Eames Ranch, Pierre foraged local prickly pears, grew amaranth in the fields, designed a series of West African-inspired platters using hand-molded plaster forms, and built a traditional mud oven made from Petaluma's own earth. The dinner itself will be cooked in the mud oven, using some of the ingredients grown on the ranch.
This dinner is a fundraising event designed to support Gastrodiplomacy’s work supporting healthy eating and food education in Bay Area public schools. Even if you can’t make it to this event, please consider making a donation to our organization so we can continue to do the great work of nourishing our communities. This is a direct-to-impact model with no complex middle people or major infrastructure to support—just a small family-like team of volunteers committed to the cause.
“As a chef, I’ve spent years trying to tell the story of African food in a global context, not as something “exotic,” but as something foundational. A cuisine of resilience, creativity, and deep environmental wisdom. Whether I’m working with fonio, okra, or amaranth, the goal isn’t just to feed people, it’s to invite them into a conversation. About climate. About memory. About belonging.”
— Pierre Thiam