Ranch to Table:
A Gastrodiplomacy for the People Dinner

May 9, 2026
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.

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GDFP DINNER SERIES 001

The Ranch to

Table Dinner

5/9/26 • PETALUMA, CA

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We created an evening filled with amazing food cooked on the land, stories that transcended borders and spanned generations, and a growing community of kind, inspiring humans.

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“Ranch to Table” was 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 was cooked in the mud oven, using some of the ingredients grown on the ranch.

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Ranch to Table was a fundraising event designed to support Gastrodiplomacy for the People’s work supporting healthy eating and food education in Bay Area public schools. The funds raised and connections made are being leveraged 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.

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Photos by Nico Zurcher, Courtesy of the Eames Institute.
Pierre Thiam posing at the Eames Ranch

“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