Tasty lessons in diplomacy

Click here to see all of our Ambassador camp foodie photos.

by Beth Dolinar

It’s 8:37 a.m. and the tour bus is ready to pull away for the trip home. On that bus are 13 hungry teenagers.

The adults are pacing at the front gate of American University in Washington, D.C., waiting for breakfast to arrive. A few are singing “The Muffin Man” song, to break the tension of the moment but also in hopes of summoning the muffin man, who was late.

It was the last day of the field trip for Luminari’s I Want to be an Ambassador Camp, a three-day excursion that took the group of students to the Greek Embassy, the European Union Embassy, and the U.S. Capitol.  We’d arranged for breakfast of muffins and orange juice to be delivered to the bus at 8:30. Things were not looking good.

We were facing a drab ending to what had been a delicious camp. Food—enjoying it and developing the ability to appreciate a wide variety of it—is like learning a universal language that bridges gaps. In fact, our founder and president, Hilda Fu, launched a camp solely for that purpose. Luminari’s Camp Delicious is all about food from the chef’s perspective. The day the Camp Delicious students learned to carve designs into watermelons, the whole kitchen smelled of summer.

The Ambassador camp is not about preparing food, but it is serious about eating it. The young ambassadors started off camp with lunch at Lidia’s in the Strip District, where the students first became acquainted with each other over plates of pasta and toasty sandwiches. By the time the lunch of grape leaves and flaky spanakopita from Andros Greek restaurant arrived at camp a few days later, the students had become buddies. 

Click here to see all of our Ambassador camp foodie photos.

Two evenings in D.C. saw cuisine from two hemispheres. At a Cuban café, the campers crowded around a long table and looked up from their menus to hear camp director Gina Catanzarite making suggestions.

“Calamari,” she said. “Squid. Try it.”

Some did, but not all. Among those youngsters who nabbed a golden ringlet with their forks, maybe two went back for another bite. But bowls of guacamole and chips were passed around. Pork drenched in the sofrito spices of tomatoes, peppers and paprika were swaddled in tortillas and shared across the table. Grilled plantains were proclaimed “banana-y” and devoured.  

The next night the group traveled a few miles across the city—but halfway around the globe—to dine at a Moroccan restaurant. Hungry from a steamy day on Capitol Hill, the campers dove into the appetizers, including an olive tapenade dip so scrumptious that loaf after loaf of bread kept disappearing into it. And then the main courses arrived, large platters of paella infused with paprika and cinnamon at one end of the table; at the other were chicken stews served in domed clay pots called tagines. Little side bowls of couscous dotted the table and filled the air with the earthy smells of turmeric and cumin.

Click here to see all of our Ambassador camp foodie photos.

The next morning the muffin man, lost or stuck in D.C. traffic, never did show up. The adults climbed onto the bus, the driver shut the doors and thirteen hungry teenagers looked up.

“We’re going to McDonald’s,” said Gina, the camp director.

And the hungry teenagers let out a cheer. Seriously—they cheered. Five minutes later the bus pulled into the golden arches and the campers spilled out to order breakfast.

All was quiet as the bus pulled back onto the highway. Thirteen tired Ambassadors happily ate egg muffins and used plastic knives to cut through plates of hotcakes balanced on laps.

It’s ironic, maybe, that a trip that visited Moroccan and Cuban restaurants would end with a fast food breakfast. Our young diplomats will remember the platters of paella, the mounds of couscous, the squid—all the exotic mouthfuls of their adventure.

But for now they were savoring hash brown patties wrapped in little paper pouches. They were happy.

Of course they were—they’re in America. And they’re hungry teenagers. 

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Luminari Coordinator, Beth Dolinar brings her talents and experience as a writer, Emmy-award producer, public speaker and deadline driven multi-tasker to our team. She writes a popular column for the Washington "Observer-Reporter." She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics and currently teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly -- because she likes a really good sentence.